


Stiles Stilinski: Agent of SHIELD

by laniew1



Series: Stiles Stilinski: Agent of SHIELD [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Mortal Kombat (1995), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 71,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniew1/pseuds/laniew1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles goes to college and accidentally gets hired by SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield**

It’s his last year of college, four years of learning and studying and there’s a little tiny part of him that is happy that it’s going to be over with.

He’s so excited about no more school and no more papers and absolutely positively no more thesis.

The only little rain cloud is the whole going home to Beacon Hills (AKA werewolf central) thing. Because he might not be a math genius like Lydia but he knows how to assign some variables and do the math and he puts his life expectancy at about 4 months (give or take three days). He’s out of practice and been stuck in a classroom.

There’s been not much time for battling Alpha Werewolf packs, or any of the other little things that he’s sure that the pack has been honing their skills with.

He’s done push-ups and sit-ups and he takes a self-defense course and he practices on the range and he does most of that because his dad worries about his safety and he can’t tell him, ‘dad I’m not in Beacon Hills, I’m safe as houses’, without explaining the whole werewolf thing.

Which he hasn’t and is not planning on doing unless someone else spills the beans first.

He’s not a werewolf, he doesn’t plan on being a werewolf so it’s not his secret to tell.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He’s in the wrong room, he knows this because there’s a table set up in the front of it and there’s a guy in a suit and three others in really cool black uniforms and he’d get up and leave but the doors have been shut and the guy in the suit is talking.

He’d slouch in his seat but everyone else around him is sitting up perfectly straight and he learned in his first year to not draw attention to himself by signaling boredom and a lack of interest of actually being in the room.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The meeting is for a job with SHIELD and he remembers the news broadcast, remembers sitting on the floor with his back pressed to the sofa watching as aliens invaded New York City and the Avengers kicked their ass.

He’s maybe just a _little_ bit of fanboy (they saved the _world_ and two of them are even _just_ human with no superpowers), if he’d been a kid he so would have had the Avengers sheets that hit the market months later and he would have been begging for the supercool action figures that came out in time for Christmas.

It’s the only reason that he actually fills out the paper they distribute, it’s not like any application of employment that he’s ever seen before and some of the questions are completely cracked. He wonders briefly if it’s all some sort of joke or if someone is doing some study on peoples willingness to answer stupid questions on a piece of paper handed out by stupidly attractive people in cool uniforms.

He dismisses that idea pretty much immediately, the three in uniforms are wandering the room, arms crossed over their chests looking stern and unapproachable, the suit is sitting at the table in the front of the room looking serene, hands folded in front of him.

He fills out the application / joke paper to the best of his abilities though it takes some doing. There’s an essay question on favorite color, and personal associations that go along with it.

He won’t get selected, his degree is in Folklore with a minor in Psychology (his plan is to treat the pack with love and support and make them a cohesive whole without someone, namely _him_ , getting slammed into walls or beaten up) and from the little speeches they’re looking for like military types with degrees that fit into that spectrum.

At least he’ll have a supercool, ‘thanks but we’re not interested’ letter with the SHIELD logo on it for his collection of Avengers (and SHIELD) memorabilia.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He gets a call for an interview. He doesn’t tell his pack or his dad because he’s almost done with school, he’s not supposed to be extending it by doing an internship and Lydia had told him he was coming home for Christmas, which he’d never agreed to but it’s Lydia so…

“Mr. Stilinski,” the suit from the internship meeting is standing there, he shakes his hand and they both sit.

They chat about the weather, current economic conditions and Stiles’ Folklore classes.

“Folklore and Psychology is an odd mix,” the suit (Agent Twitman, Stiles doesn’t laugh or make a joke, you know, be _himself_ , but only because he’s pretty much chewing through his cheek).

“Well my mom did some stuff in Folklore and it’s just interesting and Psychology is because I know a lot of crazy people back home, easy to get work,” Stiles shrugs.

Agent Twitman just nods, he’s looking at Stiles like he can see right through him, or read his mind, it’s disconcerting and kind of nerve-wracking.

“I think that’s all we need,” Agent Twitman says, he stands so Stiles stands, they shake hands again and the Agent smiles. “We’ll be in contact.”

Stiles figures there’ll be a form letter.

 

******************************************************************************

 

A packet gets delivered to his dorm room door by a young man in a SHIELD uniform; he looks from the thick packet to the guy holding it.

“That doesn’t have a ‘thanks but no thanks letter in it, does it?’” he asks, the guy raises his eyebrows and kind of shoves the packet at him.

“Welcome to SHIELD,” the guys tone indicates that he thinks that SHIELD’s HR department is nuts, but whatever.

The guy leaves and Stiles closes his door with his hip, holds the packet with both hands.

“Definitely not a rejection letter,” he mutters, not unless they also send 150 page papers on _why_ they will never consider hiring you, _ever_ , and that you might as well just pack it in.

Fuck, he’s going to have to make a phone call.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“So,” he starts when his dad answers the phone. “Hypothetically, how mad would you be if I told you I kind of got a job and would possibly not be coming home as planned?”

“What kind of hypothetical job are we talking, son?” his dad says, it says something in how far they’ve come that his dad’s voice doesn’t automatically stray into that suspicious ‘ _you’re selling drugs and or yourself on the streets to make extra cash to fund whatever illegal activities you and your friends are getting up to_ ’ tone.

“Well,” Stiles starts, and tries to figure out how to say ‘ _I accidently got a job with SHIELD that I really hadn’t even meant to apply for_ ’ without sounding like an idiot.

“Stiles?”

“SHIELD,” Stiles says in a small voice, he hunches his shoulders a bit because he remembers how his dad ranted about SHIELD and New York City for days on end.

“SHIELD? The same SHIELD that was responsible for that mess in New York City, all those deaths and about a billion plus dollars in property damage? That SHIELD?”

“Apparently their hiring standards are like so low as to be miniscule, I’m pretty sure that Scott could get hired.”

His dad is silent for a few minutes and Stiles starts fidgeting, the sit-ups and push-ups and self-defense classes go a long way in helping him deal with all his excess energy.

“Have you told the others yet?” his dad asks finally.

“I’m gonna wait until after I have my orientation, they may realized I’m not exactly SHIELD material and fire me before it even becomes an issue.”

His dad sighs that sigh that says he’s disappointed in Stiles’ self-esteem but Stiles has been working on his self-esteem issues for a while, they are what they are.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Orientation at SHIELD is like orientation at any other job he had. Only there’s a cool uniform waiting at the end of it, a reminder that the Avengers are normal people so don’t go to your knees for them and in case of alien invasions or super-villain attacks everyone is required to work straight through to the end which means you don’t leave at the end of your shift you leave at the end of the invasion / attack.

Stiles signs his name on like a thousand pieces of papers and suddenly orientation is over and even though he’s got four months left of college; he’s officially an employee of SHIELD.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He works in an office in New York City, SHIELD sets up housing so it’s like moving out of the dorms at school into dorms at work except he’s got his own room, his own bathroom and only needs to share a living room and kitchen with four others.

He calls and talks to his dad on a weekly basis; though he can’t tell him anything but that the city is nice, his roommates are nice and no he still hasn’t talked to Scott or the others yet.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He’s still research guy for the pack even if he’s across the country and hasn’t been home for almost two years because of school and internships and maybe not wanting the others to tell him they don’t need him.

If he’s not there, then no one can tell him to his face that they were doing fine without him, why the hell did he come back.

Lydia and Danny IM him anytime either of them see that he’s on-line, periodically Peter will as well which always kind of freaks him out a little bit. They always have questions about some creature and any weaknesses said creature might have.

He knows that Allison is still friendly with them, as is her dad, he thinks they just don’t like depending on the Argent’s for all their information.

They never ask him what or how he’s doing and he never volunteers the information.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are awesome, thank you!

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 2/?**

Stiles goes to school and then he does his job (it involves a lot of paper and very little to do with the Avengers which is disappointing but not unexpected), it has nothing to do with his degree and he thinks sometimes, in the privacy of his own end, that he’s completely underused.

If he were home, back in Beacon Hills, Lydia, Danny and he would be working on the database of creatures they’d started working on in his first year of college. They still poke away at it, Lydia and Danny together and Stiles when he has time.

He’d be valued as a human member of their pack instead of being a glorified paper pusher. He wonders which is worse.

******************************************************************************

They have morning briefings where they all sit in one room at the start of their shift and the agent in charge of their floor goes through activities, requirements, etc. Stiles listens because he’s there but his job never really changes and if something interesting comes along it never comes to him.

“Amerty, Miller and Stilinski stay behind please, the rest of you are dismissed,” Stiles straightens in his chair, watching from the corner of his eye as Wayne Amerty and Valerie (don’t call me Val) Miller do the same.

This is a deviation and Agent Callahan closes the door as the last of their peer group leave, he comes back to the front of the room but instead of going behind the desk he normally sits at he leans against the front of it. That’s when Stiles notices the packets by his right hand.

Agent Callahan smiles, “Congratulations, the three of you are being shifted to new job responsibilities, I’ll give you your packets and you’ll have 48 hours to pack up your belongings to move to the new locations that are outlined within.”

He straightens and hands packets to each of them. He nods once and then leaves.

Stiles watches Miller tear into hers, the expression on her face gleeful, a posting she wanted then. Amerty like him is waiting.

He kind of wants to wait, just in the case the new location sucks. Every room is bugged with cameras and microphones, he can fake a happy face with the best of them he just kind of doesn’t want to have to.

******************************************************************************

His new posting is on the Helicarrier, his new job title is Document Specialist which he _thinks_ is just a fancier title for ‘paper pusher’. But he’s stationed on the _Helicarrier_ , one of the perks of his new job is that he gets to watch monitors on one mission a month (though in small print it says that the likelihood of those missions being Avenger missions is slim to fucking none), and he’s stationed on the _Helicarrier_.

There’s no way that’s not the coolest thing _ever_.

******************************************************************************

He should have known what it would all go horribly wrong, like right out of the gate.

And it’s not even his job, like he would have thought it would have been.

His job is _fun_ and kind of awesome; he’s got access to some of the coolest books in the world, books that Lydia and Danny would sell unborn children of every member of their pack in order to read ten pages of. Document Specialist actually turns out to be like assistant to the Librarian of the every cool and awesome book about everything. He kind of wants to read them all and take pictures of himself rolling around in them and send it to Lydia and Danny with an accompanying ‘pfft’ text.

He’s pretty sure that the woman in charge of the books would kill him in painful and creative ways if he even thought of doing that in her presence.

No it goes horribly wrong because he signs up to watch a Tuesday mission (it was the only slot open and he, being the new guy and all, didn’t have many options and/or friends to trade with). He’d expected it be look see, watching a guy in a tree, and not even the cool one with the bow, but some regular Agent with a gun.

Instead the Tuesday mission ends up being an _Avengers_ mission, they’re tracking some Hulk-like creature (but not the actual Hulk who apparently had opted to sit this mission out) and Stiles is watching with wide eyes, because that’s Captain America and Iron Man and Black Widow and Hawkeye and it’s all _so_ unbelievably cool. The door is shut because once everyone had realized that the Tuesday mission was an _Avengers_ one there’d been a line of people offering up cash, cars, women and men to be able to be in the room.

Then he sees the blur to the right and bright blue eyes and he thinks ‘ _oh fuck, please don’t be in Beacon Hills_ ’.

******************************************************************************

They’re not in Beacon Hills; they’re in Laurentville, Kansas. Stiles isn’t familiar with pack lines and areas with the exception of his own but he’s 98% sure that the Avengers are in some packs territory and that a member of that pack is taking exception to that fact.

“Did they ask for right of passage?” he mutters, he runs a hand over his head and he wonders if he should raise his hand or keep his mouth shut, people on his left and right glare at him and he gets an abrupt and sort of rude ‘shhh’ from the front of the room.

Then the blur solidifies and it’s a kid maybe his age or little younger, blue eyes which means not an Alpha but that’s a born wolf like Derek and Jackson and Peter, he snarls and leaps forward and Captain America throws his shield at him and Stiles stands up.

“Did they ask for right of passage?” he asks loudly and clearly, inside he’s kind of shitting himself a little because he’s on the Helicarrier and this is an Avengers mission which means that Agent Coulson (he of the really awesome suits and was maybe actually dead once story) and Director Fury (of the eye patch of _death_ ) are right fucking there.

And now they’re both looking directly at him and Captain America’s shield is back in his hand and he’s getting ready to throw it again.

“Cap hold,” Agent Coulson says quietly.

“Hold?” Captain America says and there’s disbelief in his voice, then a grunt as the kid launches himself at him. Captain America fends him off, thankfully not using the shield as his battering ram. Instead he uses fists and legs which are probably just as bad. The feed is coming from Iron Man’s camera and they all watch as Captain America tries to fight the guy without actually hurting him when the other guy doesn’t have the same feeling.

“Hold,” Coulson touches his ear, looks over at Director Fury and then back at Stiles, “what’s your name son?”

“Um,” Stiles fidgets, “Stiles, Stiles Stilinski.”

“Explain.”

“Um, my first name is a family name and kind of…”

Coulson looks at him with a long suffering expression on his face. “Right of passage.”

“Oh, well that’s a werewolf,” he waves a hand at the monitor, “the blue eyes mean he was born a wolf, he’s attacking them because the Avengers are obviously in his packs territory, or, well he could be an Omega but they’re mostly just crazy and he’s defending like…”

Coulson holds up his hand so Stiles stops talking.

“Did you catch all that Cap?”

“There’s no such thing as werewolves,” Captain America says.

“I’ve got a young man in front of me who is actually in _front_ of me and not in a padded room, which means he passed his psych evals, which means that the thing in front of you is a werewolf.”

“So is there something special I need to say to ask for right of passage or whatever because we’re losing Ramirez’s trail the longer we wait here.”

Coulson looks at him then looks over at Fury.

“Someone get him a headset,” he says and waves Stiles down, Stiles waits a moment then Coulson glares and he brushes past the four people seated to his left that are now all glaring at him for evidently knowing something they didn’t know.

He pushes the headset on, it’s like Bluetooth thing not an actual headset and it feels weird.

“What am I supposed to…” he starts.

“Tell Cap what he needs to say in order for us to keep going after Ramirez,” Coulson says.

“Well he needs to ask for right of passage” Stiles says, again, he feels like a broken record, it’s a fairly simple concept, packs had periodically requested passage through Hale territory.

“The Pack Alpha,” Stiles says, “you need to ask his Pack’s Alpha for admittance into their territory and then the right of safe passage through it.”

“How good is werewolf hearing?” Cap asks and its right in Stiles’ ear, he startles a little, he wasn’t expecting it even though, yeah, headset, he probably _should_ have been expecting it.

“I’ve got a shot,” comes another voice, Stiles in pretty sure that’s Hawkeye. “Should I take it so we can go on our merry way?”

“Not unless your arrows are somehow lined with something that will take down a werewolf and you want to declare war with whatever pack calls where you are home,” Stiles mutters.

“Hearing?” Cap asks again. “How good?”

“Pretty good, why?”

“Because the kid is backing off a little, or at least not actively trying to claw my face off so I think he can hear you.”

“Oh, huh, interesting,” Stiles says. He guesses that it shouldn’t surprise him; Scott had been able to hear Allison’s heartbeat and Gerard threatening everyone he loved from across a lacrosse field.

“You have someone on your radios who knows of our kind,” comes another voice, male, silky smooth. It sounds far away, Stiles has to strain to hear it.

“What color are his eyes?” Stiles asks, because if the other wolf is backing off it means he has support now.

“Red, is that important?” Cap asks.

“That’s the Alpha, you need to ask for admittance and safe passage, explain what you’re looking for, they may be able to help you track it.”

“Admittance and safe passage is granted,” the voice says, Iron Man swings around and Stiles can see that the Alpha is barely in the clearing, “we’ll help you find what you seek.”

“Thank you,” Cap says.

“On the condition that your voice on the radio tells me how he is aware of our kind, is he a hunter, is he pack?”

“I’m human,” Stiles says. “But I… was pack in Beacon Hills before I came here.”

“Beacon Hills is Hale pack land,” the man says. “We have no quarrel with their Alpha or their pack, though we were sorry to hear of Laura’s death.”

“Murder, but yeah.”

“My name is Darren, admittance, safe passage and guidance through and around,” Stiles doesn’t hear anymore because he pulls the radio off and hands it off, he leaves the room and no one tries to stop him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 3/?**

He wakes up in the morning and just about jumps out of his skin, Agent Coulson is sitting there in the corner of his room, tablet laid across his legs.

“Oh my god,” Stiles mutters, he pulls blankets up to his chin and tries to not think about how this is reminiscent of Derek and his complete lack of understanding that private space is private space.

“I’ve brought you a uniform, you have about 30 minutes to shower and get changed,” Agent Coulson says, he doesn’t look up just taps his screen a few times.

Stiles glances to the right and sees the uniform hanging from his closet door.

“That’s not my uniform, I have the…” not cool one he manages to cut himself off, because what if Agent Coulson was involved in the design process. He doesn’t want to insult anyone.

“It is for today and for the foreseeable future, congratulations you’ve just got a promotion,” Agent Coulson puts his tablet down and looks at his watch then him, “you now have 27 minutes to get ready, you may have to forgo the shower.”

******************************************************************************

The uniform is just as cool as Stiles thought it would be, though it’s probably way cooler on _other_ people that actually work out and if he’s going to be wearing this one he’s going to have to go to the gym more than once every week.

“Why exactly am I,” Stiles waves his hand at his new get-up.

“The Pack Alpha has requested that you be present for negotiations for continued access to their lands to search for Ramirez,” Coulson says.

Stiles bites his lip, he doesn’t dig his heels in like a recalcitrant child and force Coulson to drag him along to their destination, mostly because he’s gone almost four years ( _a record_!) without a concussion and he thinks that Coulson wouldn’t have any problem with hitting him over the head and slinging him over his shoulder.

He’s pretty sure that a request from the pack Alpha for his presence is not a good thing.

******************************************************************************

The Black Widow and Iron Man are waiting for them when the plane lands; Iron Man is dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt so he’s probably technically Tony Stark but the Black Widow is still in her uniform. Her uniform is also really cool but Stiles is pretty sure he couldn’t pull off the v-neck.

“So this is him,” Iron Man paces around him. “Not much to look at, is he?”

“Stark, back off,” Agent Coulson says, Stiles isn’t ashamed of the fact that he’s kind of hiding behind him. Coulson can kill people with twigs he’s heard, he kind of wants to see that but not demonstrated on him.

“Just punch him if he gets on your nerves,” the Black Widow says. “He’s excited about werewolves, but annoyed because they’re refusing him DNA samples.”

“I forbid you and Dr. Banner from trying to reverse engineer werewolves in your lab,” Coulson says, he’s walking towards a vehicle that Stiles is pretty sure is theirs. If it’s not he thinks they’re taking it anyway with the way that Coulson climbs behind the wheel and Black Widow takes shotgun.

He would have called shotgun but he also thinks that the Black Widow would have killed him if he had, he looks at Iron Man and Iron Man looks at him.

“Buddy,” he holds out his arms like he wants to hug it out and Stiles goes to the other side of the car and presses his side against the door once he gets in.

******************************************************************************

Coulson apparently knows where they’re going because he starts driving and doesn’t ask for directions once.

Stiles leans against the door and tries to ignore the way that Iron Man ‘call me Tony’ is continually asking questions. That would be him, that _is_ normally him. But he’s so completely out of his depth here, it’s like being stuck in a car with three Lydia’s that are super dangerous and more apt to kill him then listen to his rambling. Besides Tony had started talking first so…

He’s not answering him but that doesn’t seem to be stopping the onslaught as Tony thinks of more.

Apparently the pack Alpha, Darren had stated that they would help with their search but would not answer any questions until Stiles had arrived. Hence Stiles’ new attire and new job responsibilities.

“He made a few phone calls last night,” Natasha is saying quietly, Stiles bites his lip, he’d put even money on at least _one_ of those phone calls being to Derek. Which means that _he’s_ going to have to finally call Derek and explain that ‘no, he won’t actually be coming home in three months as planned’.

******************************************************************************

Captain America is waiting for their car when they pull up to the house.

_Captain America is waiting for their car._

Stiles thinks he’s actually _justified_ in choking on air, any other normal person in his shoes would probably do the same thing, he has to ignore the almost betrayed looks from Tony though.

“You’re a fanboy,” Tony says in a tired voice, he shoots a narrow-eyed look at Coulson who ignores him imperiously, “did you know about this?”

Coulson raises an eyebrow and Stiles look at him as well.

“Of course you knew about this,” Tony rolls his eyes and bounds out of the car.

Stiles takes a deep breath and opens his door, Captain America is standing there, head bent as he converses quietly with Coulson. He closes the door and waits, fidgeting slightly. Not at all impatient.

Coulson waves him over and Stiles kind of braces himself to not pass out from close proximity of so much awesome.

“So this is him, I’m Steve Rogers,” Captain America says unnecessarily, he holds out his hand while he gives him a once over. “You’ve got everyone here all up in a tizzy.”

Stiles blinks at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Nah, something tells me they could use the excitement. They’re waiting for us inside, Darren has some of his wolves following Ramirez’s trail.”

“You didn’t go with them?” Coulson asks.

“They said we’d just get in the way, it didn’t seem worth the effort to argue with them; they’re going to call if they pick it up again.”

Coulson doesn’t seem to make any movement; maybe they’re just all psychic or something because Steve straightens up and starts leading them toward the house.

Stiles realizes several things simultaneously. The first is that they’re protecting him from all sides like the pack used to before he threw enough fits and they backed off enough to protecting him in ways that he couldn’t see so therefore couldn’t bitch them out about.

And he’s the only one that isn’t armed.

They’re led into the house by two wolves that had been standing just inside the doorway, they keep shooting wondering glances at Stiles and he thinks they must not get that many visitors if _he’s_ an exciting happening here.

“And this must be our wolf knowing friend,” he hears before they even walk into the room.

Steve moves off to the side, standing so he’s slightly behind him, the others spread themselves out among the room and in the groupings he can see that Natasha is passing Hawkeye, nodding once to him, he nods once back. He’s got his bow slung over his shoulder, arms crossed over his chest. Allison would probably love him, she’s always been partial to bows of any sort.

“That would be me,” Stiles says, he stands there, hands at his side as Darren walks up, he makes a circle around him, sniffing slightly as he does so.

“You don’t bend your neck to me?”

“I bend my neck to my Alpha, _you_ are not my Alpha and he has not dictated that I should do so,” Stiles stares straight ahead. There’s rules to how humans interact with wolves, when they started getting packs coming through Beacon Hills with some regularity in his senior year Derek had taught all the humans the protocols that they would need to follow to avoid dying or being claimed by another pack.

Not bending their neck to Alpha’s other than him had been one of those protocols.

“Maybe because you haven’t actually _spoken_ to him of this,” Darren stops directly in front of him, leaning in to peer at his eyes. Stiles blinks at him.

“I know this because I _have_ spoken to Derek Hale, Alpha of the Beacon Hills pack; I spoke to his uncle Peter as well. They tell me that along with their wolves they have four human pack members. A hunter, an Argent of all things,” Darren sneers and Stiles holds himself still, this is almost expected, traveling packs would always pick at Allison first.

The human hunter from a hunter line that goes back hundreds of years, she can’t have changed her spots, her family loyalty must be to her family.

But they don’t _know_ Allison; they don’t know what it’s taken for her family, for her and her father to stick with a code that most other hunters completely disregard.

“Then another, a girl that is _immune_ to the bite of an Alpha,” Darren says, he doesn’t linger on Lydia, though some others had. There must be something wrong with her or with Peter, the others had said, if the bite didn’t take.

“Then there’s a boy, I’m told that he will most likely take the bite sometime soon, that he’s refused it once already but is wavering.” Danny, Derek would never ask, but if Jackson can’t have Lydia running with him on full moons then he wants Danny there. If Lydia were amenable he’s sure that Jackson would have Danny in their bed with them, but Lydia doesn’t share not even with Danny, and from their last phone call there’d been a boyfriend anyway.

“And then there’s the Sheriff’s son, the only one of their pack to go away to school. Three months away from graduating and returning home to the pack. I think it came as a bit of a surprise to him when I told him of his soon to return home pack members employment by SHIELD.”

Darren looks at him and Stiles looks back.

“A lie by omission is still a lie,” he says.

Stiles looks at him, takes a breath and smiles. “I was never asked my intentions,” he says, he keeps his voice calm, doesn’t let the agitation that he’s feeling leak through. He’s had a lot of training on this part of being part of a pack.

He doesn’t scream that ‘ _they don’t need me_ ’, ‘ _they’re doing fine without me_ ’, ‘ _they haven’t all died horrible, painful deaths by wolfsbane or hunter attacks so what the fuck do they need me for, why can’t I have something for myself_ f’.

He doesn’t need to because he thinks Darren can read it in his eyes or something, his expression softens slightly.

“I told him that he was being short-sighted,” he says this with a sigh, with an edge of ‘kids, never looking at the big picture just the little bit that directly affects them’. “Having an active member of SHIELD as a part of his pack is not a _bad_ thing. If you were a member of _my_ pack I would have been encouraging you to explore options that would help protect us in the long run.”

Stiles frowns and Darren grins.

“He didn’t take to kindly to another Alpha from another pack offering to ‘take you off his hands’.”

“They’re coming aren’t they?” he asks.

Darren doesn’t speak, just beams a smile full of teeth at him.

That’s what he thought.


	4. Chapter 4

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 4/?**

They had been heavily encouraged to stay on pack lands but Stiles had nipped that in the bud right away.

“No conversation would be private,” he says when Steve mentions that Darren had offered them rooms for the duration.

“I mean, they might not be private in town either,” he amends after a moment’s thought, “all they’ll have to do is figure out where we’re staying and station themselves somewhere close to overhear any conversation we might be having.”

“What about a white noise generator?” Tony asks, he looks intrigued. “I could probably configure something really quick.”

“I think they would still be able to hear us, it would just be muffled under the white noise, maybe some sort of noise dampening thing,” he waves a hand. “Like those headphones you can get for airplane rides.”

Tony shakes his head, “I’m pretty sure I would have to line the walls or something and we don’t have that kind of time.”

“We could always get in the jet, go into the air and have our top secret, not for wolf ear conversations there,” Steve says.

“I don’t think I have high enough clearance for that conversation,” Stiles says.

“You have just as high of clearance as the rest of the Avengers for the moment,” Coulson says, he’s punching something into his phone and not looking at any of them. “You have technical knowledge about a creature set that are so far lending assistance but could at some point in the future become violent towards us.”

“I’m not going to give you information that’s going to harm them,” Stiles says alarmed.

“And we’re not asking you to, we’re asking that you update any records we might already have with information that we do _not_ have, so we can protect our people and our assets, as well as helping them protect themselves when they need to.”

Stiles looks at him, “you don’t have _any_ information on werewolves,” he says, he rubs a hand over his head. “At least not any information that’s _right_ , most of what’s in the archives is all fairytale stuff and most of that was written by hunters.”

Looking up what SHIELD had on werewolves was almost the first thing he’d done.

******************************************************************************

“So let’s talk about werewolves,” Coulson says once the plane gets to cruising altitude, Clint puts the plane on autopilot and comes out to join their group, Stiles isn’t sure how he feels about autopilot, he thinks he would feel safer if someone was behind the wheel.

What if the autopilot stops working and no one is sitting there to compensate and they crash and die horrible deaths. His father will never forgive him.

They all look at him and he looks back.

Right, werewolves.

“What do you want to know?”

“Is there any chance they’re playing us on Ramirez?” Clint asks. Stiles looks at him because that definitely wasn’t the type of questions he thought he’d be answering. He thought it would be all how to kill and/or capture.

“Explain,” Coulson says.

“Just seems suspicious they don’t want us involved in the search, I know they’re wolves and all, so they’ve got better smell, can move faster, all that jazz. But they don’t have the first clue what they’re looking for, and we didn’t have anything they could get a scent off. So what exactly are they searching for?”

Stiles rubs a hand against his face, it was one of the first things he’d learned about werewolves.

Unless your plans fall in line with their plans, you may not be able to trust them to make the right or rational decisions.

See exhibit A: Derek’s decision to kill Lydia when Jackson had passed his test.

See exhibit B: Derek’s decision to kill Jackson against Peter’s wishes when it was revealed he was the Kanima.

“There’s a reason that we’re not on the ground with them listening in on our conversation,” Stiles says.

“So you don’t trust them?” Steve asks.

“Not as far as I can throw them, which admittedly is not very far. So no. Werewolves live mostly in secret, the fact that Darren just took it upon himself to out at least his own pack as well as the Beacon Hills pack? Not a wise move. And screams he’s up to something.”

“Well it’s not like they went on TV in front of the entire viewing public and transformed,” Tony says. “And the most they can do is spontaneously grow facial hair and the teeth, not really screaming werewolf the way that society thinks of them.”

Stiles worries his bottom between his teeth. Derek’s going to be pissed regardless, so in for a penny, out for a pound?

“Can they actually transform into full wolves?” Steve’s eyes are wide, if they get any wider Stiles is afraid they’re going to fall out, he doesn’t want to be the one they blame for Captain America being blind.

He thinks about lying for about three seconds, but Coulson is looking at him like he knows that he’s thinking about doing that, Clint is narrowing his eyes and Natasha has a knife that has suddenly appeared from nowhere that she appears to be sharpening.

“Kind of,” he says weakly. “It kind of depends on intent and whether they’re a born wolf or a made wolf and whether they’re an Alpha or a Beta. It all, just… depends.”

“Okay,” Coulson says. “Let’s talk next steps.”

“I trust Derek and my pack more then I trust Darren and his pack,” Stiles says. “If we can get Derek and whoever he’s bringing with him,” _please be Scott, please be Scott_ , he thinks fairly violently, “Ramirez’s scent if he’s still on packlands they should be able to find him.”

“Speaking of packlands,” Clint starts. “Is there some way to determine if this is all Darren’s packlands, or if there’s someone else we should be meeting with?”

Stiles shrugs, “I know Hale packlands, but it tends to be kept kind of private, there’s scent markers and lines that are used to indicate to other wolves that they’re entering packlands but I don’t know of any way, as a human, to determine the limits of it. And most wolves aren’t going to tell you what their land limits are.”

He blinks as something occurs to him, “actually that’s probably why Darren and his wolves didn’t want you going out with them. If you were there you would visibly see at what point they turned back or balked about going further and could reasonably use that to map out how far their packland extends.”

“So Ramirez is probably long gone if they haven’t caught his scent by now,” Steve says, he sounds kind of weary, Stiles has to bite his lip to keep from telling him he should take a nap.

“Not necessarily,” Stiles starts.

“If I understand Specialist Stilinski correctly, the fact that they don’t have a clear scent is probably hampering their efforts to assist us,” Coulson says, Stiles grins, because someone was listening to him, that will never not be cool. “So prior to us continuing we need to get something with a clear scent for them.”

“Exactly.”

******************************************************************************

Tony is talking at him about the pros and cons of being a werewolf when they set down at the landing strip in Laurentville again.

Pros: Strength, speed, agility, senses.

Cons: The whole turning into a partial wolf on the full moon, and not having any control over emotions and senses. Hunters.

Hunters should actually, probably have their own bullet point but since Stiles isn’t actually answering or confirming any of what Tony’s saying, well he thinks that it doesn’t matter.

He disembarks with the rest of the team and he doesn’t even feel self-conscious about the uniform anymore, Natasha is still in hers, Clint is still in his, Coulson is still in his.

The only people not in uniform are Steve and Tony, and Steve is like half in uniform so maybe he should be half-counted with the uniform group and half-counted with the non-uniform group.

Natasha is leading the way and she stills in a way that screams ‘danger Will Robinson, danger!!’ and pulls her gun. Clint has his bow off his shoulder and an arrow at the ready only a split second later.

Derek is standing there, arms crossed over his chest looking every inch the sullen, angry wolfman he’d been when Stiles had first met him. They’re probably lucky his control has only gotten better as his pack had solidified around him, or his eyes would be flashing red.

“Fuck,” Stiles mutters, he’d thought he was ready.

Apparently he wasn’t.


	5. Chapter 5

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 5/?**

It seems like Derek brought the whole pack, with the possible exception of Allison with him.

Scott stands at one shoulder, Peter at the other, the rest of the pack fanned out behind them.

Stiles sighs and steps forward only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. It hurts a little and a glance behind him shows that it’s Steve holding him back and when he looks forward again Clint has moved forward next to Natasha.

“Are you guys guarding me?” he asks almost flabbergasted.

“The middle one doesn’t look exactly stable,” Tony says, “Humor us.”

“Derek and me, we’ve come a long way from him pushing me up against walls and smacking my head into a steering wheel,” Stiles says. He realizes that it was probably the _wrong_ thing to say when Clint twitches and Steve’s grip loosens only to be replaced by Tony’s arm.

“That’s not what it sounded like,” Stiles says.

“Abuse is still abuse,” Tony mutters.

“I was a mouthy kid.” He doesn’t elaborate, and he appreciates the support and the knowing that if he’d known them back then that they might have interfered on his behalf.

But he also remembers himself back then, so they might have been lining up right behind Derek.

“I was a mouthy kid once too,” Steve says. “It still doesn’t make it right.”

They watch as Coulson walks forward. He looks calm and collected and Derek hasn’t got his angry eyes on, yet, so they might be okay.

“Mr. Hale, thank you for coming,” Coulson says, like Derek was an invited guest instead of an interloper once Darren called and spilled Stiles’ beans without a by-your-leave. He doesn’t hold out his hand and Derek doesn’t offer his, Scott’s eyes dart between Derek and where Tony has still got an arm slung over Stiles’ shoulders.

He looks hurt and kind of sad and it makes Stiles want to go over and drag him into a great big bear hug, he doesn’t think he could lift him off the ground like he could when Scott got those eyes and Stiles attacked him with hugs.

Scott has muscle and bulk, and Stiles isn’t very far removed from the scrawny-ish kid he’d been before he left for college.

“I think you have something that is mine,” Derek says, his voice is low but loud enough that it carries and Stiles bristles, shrugging Tony’s arm off and stalking forward.

“ _Fuck you_ , dude,” he says. “We had this talk, way back when, but apparently you have the brain span of a fucking gnat,” he jabs a finger into Derek’s chest, it’s hard with muscle and chances are that Derek doesn’t even feel it though it makes him feel _loads_ better. He ignores the raised eyebrows that he’s getting from Coulson and surprisingly enough Peter.

“Pack doesn’t constitute property,” he snaps. “I. Am. My. Own. Person,” jabs for each word and Derek grabs his hand, squeezing once before he releases it.

Stiles ignores everyone behind him and doesn’t look at anyone besides Derek.

“You’re pack,” Derek says slowly, he’s got his ‘talking to an idiot’ voice on that he used to adopt when talking to Scott.

“Pack is family, not belongings,” Stiles crosses his arms over his chest, it probably looks pretty impressive from a distance. Stiles standing there in his borrowed SHIELD uniform with the Avengers spanned out behind him, glaring at Derek.

Derek narrows his eyes and Stiles makes his glare harder, it’s times like he wished he was a mutant or one of the superhero brigade, the ability to shoot lasers out of his eyes would come in handy when trying to make a point to a werewolf that is otherwise invincible.

Maybe if he asks nicely Tony will build one for him, or put his Iron Man suit back on and do it for him. He doesn’t know him well enough to ask favors though, and he’s pretty sure that once this is over and they either have Ramirez or don’t that he won’t ever see any of them again.

“All right then,” Coulson says. “Now that the definition of pack versus property is taken care of how about we get down to business.”

Derek looks at Stiles, his eyes say this conversation is not in any way over with. Stiles nods once to show his understanding and Derek nods once to show that he’s not okay with putting this off to later but will do so just so that maybe they won’t have an audience.

“What do you need us to do?”

******************************************************************************

It all boils down to the simple fact that Stiles doesn’t trust Darren. There’s just something that twigs that nerve in the back of his neck that makes him jumpy and paranoid.

He spent the latter half of his teen-age years keeping the werewolf secret and to have a werewolf just waltz in and out his entire pack to SHIELD? It just seems off and wrong and he had to know what he was doing.

It’s not like Captain America could have been anybody _but_ Captain America especially with the shield; all of the Avenger s have been in the papers and magazines from People (spotlight on America’s Heroes) to Glamour (10 ways to determine if you are [enter superhero name of choice]’s perfect match).

“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” he says finally, the room as a whole turns to look at him. He can see Tony and Steve exchanging looks.

“You just got through _telling_ us that you don’t trust him,” Steve says, he says in a sensible voice that Stiles has heard his dad pull out at times.

“It’s just,” Stiles waves a hand and almost smacks Clint upside the head, Clint shoots him a look, then moves six inches to the left and continues doing whatever it is that he’s doing to his arrows. Allison would know, but apparently Darren wouldn’t okay an Argent coming onto his packlands regardless of that fact that she’s part of Derek’s pack.

She’s keeping an eye on Beacon Hills with her dad.

“There’s this spot, in the base of my neck that twinges when something fishy is going on,” Stiles says. Coulson looks at him and Stiles flushes. “It does, it helped us avert two pack-wars and a gnome infestation.”

“A twinge?” Tony asks at the same time that Natasha asks, “gnomes?”

Stiles concentrates on the gnomes first because the twinge-thing always makes people (read Derek) look at him like he’s a crazy person.

“Yeah, you know those little gnomes that people put in their gardens?” Natasha twitches.

“They’re creepy,” she says.

“Those little things are sentient?” Steve asks, there’s a tone of disbelief in his voice.

“Not all of them, but old Mrs. Anderson had like three in her garden and they apparently breed like rabbits and don’t believe in monogamy, because all of a sudden she had like 180 of them and they were declaring Beacon Hills theirs.”

“Pull the other leg,” Clint says, he doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “Just cause werewolves are real, doesn’t mean that all the other stuff is too.”

A knock at the door saves Stiles from having to defend his knowledge of the supernatural which is based on actual shit he _lived_ through to a guy that shoots explosive arrows for a living. He _wishes_ he didn’t know half the shit he knows.

Lydia is standing there when Steve opens the door; Natasha has a gun that she has pulled from _somewhere_ in hand and she keeps it out even though it’s just Lydia.

“Am I interrupting?” she asks, she sounds different, older and kind of subdued. Stiles would stand and hug her, she looks like she needs a hug but he knows from personal experience that she would also punch him in the stomach if he so much as tried.

“Stiles was telling us about garden gnomes,” Tony says, he’s got a chair turned around backwards, arms braced on the back.

“I would have told them about the pixies that enchanted Danny or the mountain troll but whatever,” Lydia says as she walks in, Steve closes the door behind her.

“We were talking about the twinge in my neck,” Stiles says, he rolls his eyes. The pixies only enchanted Danny because he wandered into their grotto, they’d had to grind up four sunflowers into dust and blow it in his face. No one even wolfed out with the exception of Jackson so he sometimes doesn’t even count it.

And he _definitely_ doesn’t count the mountain troll because none of the humans even got to _see_ it; they’re human and therefore delicate and easily breakable, so they had to stay cooped up in Derek’s at time when it was still mostly a rundown shack of a home.

Stiles has a firm ‘if I don’t see it, if you didn’t manage to get pictures or video of it, then I don’t believe you really fought it’ policy for a lot of the stuff the pack says they fight and uses as reasons as to why the humans need to be sequestered in a house that might fall down around their ears.

“Oh,” Lydia shrugs at him.

“We’ll do some x-rays and tests when we get home,” Tony says.

“Standard tests, no special tests,” Coulson interjects; Tony makes a face and Stiles blinks at the fact that it needs to be stated.

“Stiles _has_ a home,” Lydia says sharply, she’s glaring at Tony and he’s looking at her like she’s a new puppy for him to play with. Stiles thinks that he should nip that right in the bud, because that’s dangerous times for all of them and the room is only so big.

“Of course he does, it’s called his room on the Helicarrier,” Tony says.

“Hold on,” Stiles holds his hands up. “Should we just get down to the pissing on me part of the conversation? Because I thought, crazily enough, that I’d have to worry about that more with the wolves than the humans.”

******************************************************************************

Derek finds Ramirez’s scent, Stiles had faith he would.

Of course he’s also long gone, or least still moving at a crisp pace away from them.

“I can give you a general idea on the direction he seems to be maintaining,” Danny says, he has his laptop open and he punches a few buttons to show a general trajectory.

“All right,” Steve stands, claps his hands once. “Tony if you suit up, we’ll get moving and try to round him up before he gets much further.”

Stiles looks over at Coulson and he jerks his head once, Stiles takes that as the permission that he’s sure that it means to hold and leaves the room.

******************************************************************************

The little bed and breakfast that they’re staying in has a back porch with a swing, Stiles sits on one side and pushes himself with his feet. He wishes he had a change of clothes; the uniform that had been mildly uncomfortable when he first put it on, then forgot all about for the most part while everything was going is now equal parts sticky and clammy at the 24 hour mark.

He doesn’t know how superheroes do it. Wearing the same uniform for days on end while they battle villains and evil doers alike. Maybe they’re allowed to make pit stops to change into new fresh attire?

“You’re not coming home, are you?” the voice is Derek’s but the question is not one of the ones that he expected to hear.

“I like my job,” Stiles says. It’s probably the first time he’s said those words out loud.

He likes what he does. He likes knowing that somewhere, something that he had a part of is changing or helping someone.

Derek is silent as he comes around the corner; he sits on the other side of the swing and uses his feet to stop the motion of it.

“You should have told us from the beginning,” Derek says, he’s clenching his hands into fists when Stiles looks over at him.

“You wouldn’t have let me do it, you wouldn’t have let me stay. You would have sent someone, probably Lydia, maybe Scott to drag me back home and…” Stiles says, he knows Derek. He knows that the minute Derek knew about SHIELD’s offer that he would have removed Stiles from the sphere of influence.

“As you keep telling me, you are pack not property,” Stiles smiles a little. “And Darren is not wrong,” he narrows his eyes at that and Derek looks out into the woods. “Having you at SHIELD could be helpful in the long run.”

“So you’re going to let me keep my job, because it’s a good strategic decision.”

“No, you are going to keep your job because if I tell you to _quit_ your job you’ll yell again, and because it’s obvious that you like it, and you must be good at it because…” he waves a hand at the building where the Avengers are most likely still strategizing since he hasn’t heard any of them leave.

“ _I know_ ,” Stiles says. When they’d been watching the news broadcast on the alien invasion in New York City and the Avengers made their grand appearance Derek had been right there. Wide eyes and watching just like him.

“So no pissing contest?” Stiles asks. Derek growls a little and Stiles bites his lip.

“You’re already ours; we’re just letting them borrow you for a little while.”

******************************************************************************

Derek goes inside, probably to instigate pack cuddle time or something; he’d probably get mauled if he actually called it that, which is why he only calls it that in the privacy of his own head.

“You can come down now,” he says after a minute, he’s gratified when Clint comes swinging out of a tree, not the one that Stiles had thought he’d be in though. He had his bow in hand, no arrow out so he must not have seen anything that he’d labeled as a threat.

“You said that he used to push you into walls,” Clint says, it’s unapologetic. Just an explanation since Stiles must look like he needs one.

“And I told you guys that we got past that,” Stiles says. He hopes that they’re not going to harp on that, he in no way signed up to be the poster child for Alpha abuse. He was just trying to explain, very badly apparently, the complicated nature of his friendship with Derek.

Clint just looks at him, Stiles sighs and goes back inside.

******************************************************************************

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few comments/answers for questions that have been brought up in comments: which thank you guys, you are awesome and I completely appreciate you sticking with me through this.
> 
> So two answers to questions that have come up that I can answer; Bruce / Hulk will appear and Clint is not and has never been a Hunter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay, real life snuck up on me. Barring an unforeseen issue this evening we should be good to go.

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 6/?**

Stiles goes back to New York and the Helicarrier with little fanfare.

And it’s not like he expected a parade or Scott beating on his chest in agony or anything. He’d just thought that since the pack had come all the way to Laurentville to supposedly see _him_ … well he’d kind of thought they’d at least be there to say _goodbye_.

But when he gets his wake-up call from Coulson he finds out that not _only_ have the Avengers gone to continue their search for Ramirez, but that his _pack_ has gone to play nice with Darren’s pack.

It’s just Lydia and Danny waiting for him, and _they’d_ only stayed behind because apparently the packs were going to be doing wolfy, no humans invited stuff.

Lydia seems slightly annoyed by that, Stiles thinks that its jealousy rearing up green-eyed hind legs and roaring, she doesn’t seem to realize that she’s got Jackson tied around all of her fingers and toes and her only real competition is most likely Danny.

He slides into the empty chair that he’s pretty sure is meant for him; Danny’s got a bagel already smeared with cream cheese waiting and Lydia shoves a bowl of fruit next to the plate and they discuss the next steps for their database of creatures without any creature involvement.

******************************************************************************

They’ve been working on the database since their senior year in highschool. Three humans left alone in a house while the wolves are out doing something interesting? Well they had to do something and Danny was too sensible to allow them to follow along behind and Lydia had vetoed the orgy before Stiles had even formed a complete thought centering around it.

Instead they started working on the database. Danny did all the programming, Stiles did the web searching for any and all mentions of supernatural type creatures and Lydia (after complaining fiercely about her nails and they damage all the typing was doing) helped dump everything that Stiles had found into it.

Then they all started working on translating the Argents Bestiary to verify the existence of the hypothetical creatures and put great big question marks on the ones that they can’t verify.

They’d originally planned on just dumping the Argent’s Bestiary into the database and adding to it, but as they’d found out very early on, it’s weighted heavily in favor of the Hunters and there are quite a few creatures that aren’t necessary evil unless cornered with a crossbow in their face.

******************************************************************************

It’s sort of anti-climactic getting back to the Helicarrier, Stiles isn’t sure what he expected.

Agent Coulson is ushered away pretty much as soon as they step off the jet to meet with Director Fury and the flight crews are waiting for him to move so they can do whatever it is that they do.

He’d thought there’d be some sort of direction, guidance or something. There isn’t any, at least none that anyone is sharing with _him_ ; so he goes to his room, it’s to be same old, same old he thinks. He’s got six hours before his shift starts so he strips off his borrowed uniform and drops it into the laundry, changes into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and collapses on his bed.

He doesn’t have time or energy to think about how he thought things would change, because he’s exhausted and he’s asleep pretty much as soon as his head hits the pillow.

******************************************************************************

He skids to a stop about a second before the start of shift. His alarm hadn’t gone off and then he couldn’t find any uniforms and it’s pretty much started out the way most crap days do.

If he were in Beacon Hills he would have phoned in a ‘be on high alert for attack’ message right as he slid into his desk in homeroom.

He didn’t have time for coffee so he’s trying to yawn without opening his mouth while the head Librarian hands out assignments. His heart sort of jumps and startles when the group is dismissed and he doesn’t have a job for the day.

“Stilinski,” she looks at him like he’s an interesting book that she would love nothing more than to shove under some spot lights and look for hidden meaning in. He takes a step back out of reflex, even though he’s pretty sure he could take her, because in his past experience that look has meant something trying to gut him and peer at his insides. “What are you doing here?”

“Um,” he glances at the clock over the main desk, yes, it is time to start. “It’s the start of my shift?”

She sighs at him then goes behind the desk to her phone. It rings before she can pick it up.

“Library,” she says, her voice is always calm and cool. She would be an awesome 911 operator, nothing seems to faze her. “Yes, he’s right here. Yes, yes, well apparently no one either shared that information with him or directed him where to go.”

She hangs up and looks at him, he looks back and tries not fidget.

“Am I being fired?” he asks finally, she raises an eyebrow at him.

“You’re being moved to a lateral department,” she says finally.

“But… I like my job,” he says.

“Then you shouldn’t have displayed knowledge that would be better suited elsewhere,” a voice comes from behind him. There’s an older woman standing there when he turns, she’s in a similar uniform to the one that he’d been wearing when Agent Coulson took him on his field trip.

“I’ll take him from here,” her voice is cool and he looks between the two women who are eying each other like they’re looking for the best spot to put the knife or a bullet.

******************************************************************************

“Where exactly are we going?” he asks, he’s fairly in shape, he’s still feeling like he might actually _die_ if they don’t reach their destination soon.

“Agent Coulson was very impressed with your work in Laurentville,” she ignores his question so he doesn’t tell her that Agent Coulson had seemed sort of indifferent to him in Laurentville. “And since Agent Coulson was impressed with you, that means Director Fury has taken an interest in your placement here.”

“Is that why I’m being moved?” he asks even though he doesn’t expect an answer. They stop in front of a door finally, he doesn’t go to knees and praise the lord but it’s a near thing. The door is closed and apparently secured as she pulls a key card from her pocket; the lock light turns green when she swipes it across the pad and the door slides open. He’s startled when she hands it to him.

“What?”

She walks into the room, which turns out to be an office when he enters. It’s bright and airy; it has a window with a view of the sky since the Helicarrier is in the air.

There are two desks that he can see, the one in front is neat and orderly; the one stationed back and away from the door, half hidden by a partitioned wall looks like it should be creaking from the weight of the books and papers piled on top of it. There are two coffee cups hanging out on a corner and he thinks he sees a tray from the cafeteria half buried.

There’s a table with four chairs off to one side of the room and on the other side is a row of bookcases, looking disorganized and cluttered and it all makes his fingers twitch to pull out some cleaning supplies.

The door clicks open behind them and he turns to see a young man about his age, maybe slightly younger standing there.

“Is this him?” the kid asks.

“No Crawford, I brought someone who shouldn’t even know where these offices are and handed him a key card because he looked cute, yes this is him.”

“He was supposed to be here first thing this morning,” Crawford says, he goes around them, heading not for the cluttered desk in the back but the neat and orderly one in front of it.

“No one apparently told him where to go,” she says, they both look at him and he clears his throat.

“We got back late last night; Agent Coulson was pulled into a meeting with Director Fury right after we got back.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you two to get started. Crawford do you have his schedule for the day?”

“Yes ma’am, I’ll make sure he gets to where he needs to with time to spare.”

She leaves, the door clicking shut behind her.

“She didn’t even introduce herself,” Stiles stares after her.

“Agent Daniels,” Crawford says, he punches a few keys on his keyboard and his computer starts booting up. “She’s kind of our liaison between the Library and… well everyone else.”

“So she’s our boss,” Stiles says nodding once.

“Not really, we, our little department of two, kind of dotted line reports to a bunch of different people. She’s just the one that makes sure that we aren’t getting crack head requests from departments who have no reason to request things. All requests get routed through her then she identifies the list of priorities and then sends them on to us.”

Stiles’ eyes must be huge by the time that Crawford finally stops talking because he takes pity on him and points at the desk.

“That’s your desk there,” he says.

“And the piles of paper and books are your way of welcoming me to the fold?”

Crawford laughs sharply, startled, like he hadn’t been expecting it.

“No, that’s just the way that Agent Markoff liked to work.”

“Did Agent Markoff lose his job because of me?” Stiles asks as he sort of tentatively approaches the desk. The last time he’d seen a pile of stuff like this there’d been a garden gnome with a spear waiting for him. He hadn’t ended up being a Stiles on a stick because Isaac had been there and sort of flung him out of the way.

“No, he dropped dead about three weeks ago; they’d been looking for a replacement since then.”

“Did he get crushed by his piles of paper? Because Holy Mary mother of God that’s a huge fucking pile of paper,” Stiles says as he makes it around the desk. Nothing attacks him; he counts it as a win. The piles look worse from this side, how did Markoff ever get anything _done_?

“Heart attack, it was kind of sudden.”

“Oh, crap, I’m sorry for your loss,” Stiles says.

“Nah, don’t be, he was a grade A prick, I’m not even sure why Director Fury hired him except he knew all sorts of obscure stuff about a bunch of other stuff,” Crawford says, his computer beeps and he glances at the screen then down at his wrist.

Stiles pushes a pile of paper aside gently, makes himself a little hole in the center of the desk so he can put his hands there, he’d lay his head down and sob but he thinks that’ll scare Crawford.

“You’ve got a meeting with Agent Coulson in 24 minutes,” Crawford says, “If we leave now we’ll make it mostly on-time.”

“Can we leave a trail of breadcrumbs? I’m not sure how we even got here in the first place.”

******************************************************************************

Agent Coulson is sitting silently behind his desk looking at him, Stiles sits silently in his chair wishing he’d chosen to sit on his hands so he wouldn’t feel like wringing them together and apologizing.

Coulson looks over at Crawford. “I’ll go find him some new uniforms and get his IT credentials setup,” Crawford says, he widens his eyes and bites his lip when he turns to leave, Stiles almost grins but manages to catch himself in time.

The door to Coulson’s office is silent as it closes behind Crawford.

“I meant to have this meeting with you yesterday,” Coulson says. “But time got away from us.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sure that Specialist Crawford is going to be able to get you up to speed fairly quickly on how things run in that office, but mostly the expectation is that you are going to continue to do what you’ve been doing.”

“Is this meant to be a temp thing, you know, fill in until you find someone more qualified, because… well what I’ve been doing is filing papers and books and using my lunch break to read the ones that we’re allowed to touch.”

“This is a permanent move, and the expectation is going to be you continuing on in your role as liaison between any werewolf packs we might have to come in contact with in the course of missions. When that’s not actually a duty requiring your full attention Agent Markoff was working on verifying the existence of the various creatures and entities on this planet that we may not have already been aware of, as well as setting up a series of documents that address how to interact with them without an incident like the one a few days ago.”

“So what you want me to really do is continue on with the fact or fiction database that Lydia and Danny and I are working on,” Stiles says slowly.

“Yes, Mr. Mahealani and Ms. Martin showed us the software that you’ve been working on; I’m sure Mr. Stark will try to talk you into making changes to it for whatever reason, feel free to smack him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper if he gets out of control.”

“You want me to work, on _SHIELD time_ , on the database that my friends and I work on in our _spare time_.”

“I think you’ll find that Agent Markoff has given you a very good head start on the process.”

******************************************************************************

The database is going to be housed on a separate computer, not connected in any way to the SHIELD network. Coulson wouldn’t tell him why, just said that it was better for everyone involved this way.

There’s a tightening of his mouth that Stiles will later learn means that it has something to do with Tony Stark, but at that point he just makes a wild guess and pinpoints Tony as the most probable reason.

******************************************************************************

The Avengers return with Ramirez in tow, Stiles doesn’t see him or them, though he hears the whispers at dinner when he and Crawford go get something to eat. Thursday is chicken patty and curly fries day in the cafeteria and Stiles isn’t strong enough to resist the lure of deep fried chicken and curly fries.

It takes him four days to settle into a routine and feel brave enough to completely clear off the piles of papers and books on his desk.

Crawford makes a noise like Stiles is killing something in his _soul_ when he comes in and finds Stiles in the middle of their office surrounded by piles of paper.

“I think the papers are breeding,” Stiles says.

“Oh my god, what are you _doing_?” Crawford returns.

“I can’t _work_ like that,” Stiles waves a hand in the air.

“Well I can’t work like _this_!”

“So make a hole and help me get through the piles, the longer they stay on the floor the more of them there seem to be.”

******************************************************************************

Stiles has meetings with Agent Coulson twice a week to update him on the progress of the database as well as the progress of anything that will make outline how to interact with creatures of a non-human, non-mutant variety so as to not get their agents killed.

He doesn’t need Crawford to take him to the meetings anymore because he’s more or less (mostly less, but he’s down to one wrong turn a trip now) figured out how to get to Coulson’s office and back.

Clint is there on his Thursday meeting, leaning against a cabinet against one wall, arms crossed over his chest. ‘Assassin at Repose’ Stiles titles the snapshot his brain takes.

He has nicely muscled arms and Stiles turns that line of thought off pretty much immediately. Those types of thoughts lead to death by either bow and arrow or throat slitting and he’s actually having a really good week so…

He takes a seat in the empty chair across from Coulson’s desk, folders staying closed on his lap.

“What do you know about vampires?” Coulson asks, Stiles blinks and looks over at where Clint appears to be totally bored by everything.

“I know to stay away from them,” Stiles says. Vampires of real are not at all like the vampires in books and movies, they’re mostly vicious and cruel and they enjoy playing with their food (AKA humans) before they drain them.

They don’t have souls and they don’t feel remorse and if you get in the line of sight of one…

“And if that’s not an option?” Coulson taps the fingers of his right hand against his desk.

“There’s a few ways to kill them,” Stiles says, “I’ll make a list.”

“What if we don’t want to kill it?” Clint asks.

“Then you could fake your own death, because see the thing about vampires, they’re kind of like the Terminator, they’ll always be back.”

And if at first they don’t succeed they’ll bring companions to help the cause along.

Vampire and werewolves don’t get along; one of the ways to kill a vampire is to have a werewolf tear it into teeny-tiny little shreds. Stiles heard about it later, he’d been glad at the time that he was a ‘fragile human’ because if he’d _been_ there, and he’d _seen_ the mess instead of hearing about it later?

He would have sworn off meat and possibly _food_ forever.

******************************************************************************


	7. Chapter 7

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 7/?**

It takes them three days to work through the piles of paper and books, Crawford relaxes once they get the piles of paper relegated to folders in a cabinet and the books back on the shelves. Stiles feels better too because it means that he can Lysol the hell out of his desktop (as well as the rest of the office though he waits for Crawford to leave before doing so) and he has somewhere to set up his computer and pictures.

“I like order,” he says one night at dinner, they eat together after they finish their shift mostly because Stiles doesn’t like eating alone and he’s not that great at making friends. There’s a _reason_ why Scott was his best and only friend for the longest time and it has very little to do with his ADHD and more to do with the fact that apparently he tries too hard and that drives people away instead.

“You couldn’t prove it by the piles of paper that I found on our office floor three days ago,” Crawford mutters.

“I was going to have a nervous breakdown working through them on my desk, it was better for both of us to just rip off the band-aid and deal with the issue head on.”

Dinner is some sort of meatloaf thing, Stiles’ is better; he’d perfected a non-meat version years ago that his dad still to this day doesn’t know contains _no_ meat at all. The pack knows and they’ll actually eat it without throwing a fit which doesn’t really mean _anything_ since they’d actually eat _raw_ meat if Stiles didn’t cook it out of fear of them all catching salmonella or mad cow disease or something.

“Except now I’m afraid one of the filing cabinets is going to explode.”

Stiles makes a face because the cabinets _had_ been filled right to capacity. Crawford probably has a reason to worry. Except…

“They’re SHIELD filing cabinets, I’m pretty sure they’re reinforced to withstand attacks and shit.”

A tray clatters onto the table next to him and they both look over in askance. No one sits with them, not ever. It’s like being in high school again, only without the werewolves and Hunters and almost dying every week.

He would have thought working for SHIELD would be filled with more danger; instead he’s going on four weeks without a near death experience. It’s almost a record.

His actual record is 86 days; it probably doesn’t count though because he was visiting his grandmother for 84 of those days.

Clint is dropping into the chair next to him; Natasha sets her tray down much more quietly and slides into the seat next to Crawford. They’re both in civilian clothes though both are also visibly (and most likely invisibly) armed.

The expression on Crawford’s face would be hilarious if Stiles didn’t think his face looked exactly like that at the moment.

“Do you want us to move?” Stiles asks, they’re mostly done but if the cool kids want to lower themselves to eat in the cafeteria with the rest of them, well Stiles can give up his table.

“Why would you move, you were sitting here first?” Natasha asks, she’s poking suspiciously at her meatloaf.

Crawford looks at him and Stiles looks right back.

“We have to eat as well,” Clint says, if it were anyone else Stiles would say he sounds defensive. But Clint Barton is an Avenger and is tangling with vampires if not voluntarily then for a mission that is probably six levels above Stiles’ pay grade; he’s got no reason to sound defensive.

He kind of wants to ask about the vampire, find out if his advice was taken and they’d put it down or if he needs to stock up on garlic and crucifixes because they’ve got it locked up somewhere on the Helicarrier.

He doesn’t because Clint is shoveling food in his mouth at a pace that indicates he _knows_ that it’s not going to taste _any_ better if he eats it slow, Natasha is still poking at her food with her fork like she’s waiting for it to develop sentience and attack.

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles says in a tone that he hopes conveys the fact that he knows that is bullshit but is going to let it slide since it’s 2/6 of the Avengers and he doesn’t feel like breaking his non-death experiences streak.

“He okay?” Clint points a fork at Crawford whose face is sheet white, Stiles is seriously worried that he might have a stroke at the table.

“He’s fine,” Stiles says and he shoots a look at Crawford that tells him to chill the fuck out.

“Stark’s been trying to get in touch with you,” Natasha says, she’s given up provoking her meatloaf into attacking her and pushed it, tray and all, across the table to Clint. He makes a face at it but doesn’t refuse, just puts that plate on top of his and shoves the tray aside.

“Why?” Stiles blinks, because he can’t think of any reason that Tony Stark would need to get in touch with him.

Unless…

But no, there’s no reason that Tony would be interested in the database, because he shouldn’t know that it exists.

There are six people that know about it, Stiles, Crawford, Lydia, Danny, Agent Coulson and Director Fury. Not even the pack _knows_ about it, though he’s pretty sure that Derek and Allison know they’re working on _something_.

Derek knows that because Danny doesn’t like to keep secrets from Jackson, Stiles thinks that it actually physically hurts Danny to keep secrets from Jackson. If Jackson can ever get Lydia to not see Danny as a threat to their relationship they’re going to be fucking so fast…

Danny had told Jackson they were working on something, then asked him to _not_ ask him what it was. Jackson, for all that Stiles thought he’d be weaseling for information, had respected whatever boundaries Danny had set up.

Allison knows because they’d had to ask to borrow the Argent’s Bestiary, they hadn’t kept it more than a couple of days, with all three of them typing they got it pretty uploaded pretty quick. She doesn’t ask them questions she knows they won’t answer, though she does poke at Lydia periodically.

“Stark said something about tests,” Natasha says, she’s peering at him like she can see his soul and finds it lacking in some way.

“Oh… I thought he’d forgot about that,” hoped was more like it, Stiles doesn’t get that lucky though as evidenced by his life to date.

“No, he just puts them on the backburner until they become more readily accessible. He’s been trying you on your phone but apparently it’s not working,” Clint piles his tray on top of Natasha’s and kind of leans back in his chair. On anyone else Stiles would call it a slouch but every muscle in his body speaks of the intent of leaping into battle if someone even so much as _looks_ at them the wrong way.

“I don’t have a phone,” Stiles says. He used to, it was a really nice, one that he’d saved up for and begged his dad for money for the rest.

“What he means is he put it on vibrate because it was annoying him and it got filed in one of the filing cabinets when we were sorting through the metric ton of paperwork that Agent Markoff had left on his desk,” Crawford manages to say, he doesn’t make eye contact with either Natasha or Clint, instead choosing to focus on a spot on the wall between Clint and Stiles’ shoulders.

Clint looks at him and Crawford turns even whiter, mumbles something under his breath and bolts.

Natasha looks after him then looks back at Stiles. Stiles looks back and shrugs because if they don’t know the type of emotional impact they have on people then he’s not going to be the one to share it.

******************************************************************************

They didn’t capture the vampire, Stiles thanks god for small miracles.

There’s a two page report that shows up on his desk somehow, maybe there’s mail fairies that delivered it or something. If there are he wishes they’d do it on a daily basis, normally Crawford has to go out and pick it up because their office is locked down to only permit three people, with medical and Director Fury having override codes.

The vampire is dead, Clint had used bullets filled with garlic and holy water (a recipe that Stiles and the Argents came up with when Beacon Hills had a really determined vampiress that had locked on to Isaac, apparently his blood tastes like ambrosia instead of just, you know, blood) to take it out.

There’s a yellow sticky note attached to it with a scrawled; ‘ _Can you make this work for my bow_?’

Stiles sends Allison an e-mail, copying himself and Agent Coulson with the request of ‘ _anti-vampire arrowheads, possible or not???_ ’

******************************************************************************

Tony appears at the door of their office, Crawford is thankfully not there, he’s out doing whatever it is that he does when he’s not telling Stiles where to go and who he needs to report out to next.

The door should have been closed, it actually was closed and locked Stiles is sure of this; but Tony is suddenly standing there looking around so maybe it wasn’t?

“You need some color on the walls, this whole place screams mental institution to me,” Tony says.

“Well Crawford does scream periodically but mostly that’s because there’s a book in the wrong place. How did you get in here? That door was…” he waves a hand at it.

“Doors like me,” Tony smiles enigmatically at him and Stiles blinks, frowns.

“Did you break my door? Because that’s not cool, that door is the only thing standing between me and the line of cool people with cool jobs that want shit I can’t give them.”

“I didn’t break it,” Tony looks distressed that Stiles could think such a thing of him. “It was just missing some people on the approved list, so I made a few modifications.”

“You added all the Avengers to the approved list for my office? I’m going to have to let Crawford go to so many counseling sessions,” he mutters under his breath. He also wants to ask why the Avengers have seemingly adopted him, he _has_ a family already.

“I heard that,” Tony is sort of poking around the office, looking at the bookcases, the filing cabinets with locks on them (it makes Crawford feel better that the papers they’ve stuffed in there can’t just leap out and smother him while he’s sitting at his desk unaware). There’s a white board with their wish list of things that would make their lives so much simpler if only they could figure out the requisition process.

“The list of shit I need to buy once I find out what exactly my department is, whether we have a budget and how much of it I can spend,” Stiles says when he sees Tony standing in front of it.

At the top of the list is phone. Stiles apparently didn’t pay the extra for insurance for _his_ phone, so he’s either going to have to dump out the filing cabinets one by one until he finds it and Crawford quits to have his nervous breakdown or wait until his plan is ready for an upgrade.

“I can get most of this stuff,” Tony has his phone out and is punching away at it.

Stiles’ life is surreal, he’s across the room smacking at Tony’s hands before he thinks about what he’s doing or who he’s physically accosting.

Derek will be _beyond_ thrilled if he gets his ass fired though.

“That’s why I have a department and supposedly a budget,” Stiles says, Tony’s got his phone held above his head and Stiles is almost taller than him he could probably knee him and get it but it seems like too much effort and also kind of like keep-away that he used to play with Scott.

“Yes, but this way you don’t have to wade through the bureaucracy and explain why you need it.”

“They’ll _know_ why I need it, I’m actually surprised we don’t _have_ it already, but maybe Agent Markoff spoke seven languages, two of them dead fluently. I unfortunately do not, so I need the Rosetta Stone in Russian or I’m going to need Russian for Dummies and about six additional months on all my requests.”

Tony barks out a laugh at him and pats him on the shoulder, hand coming up to curve around the back of his neck and Stiles puts his hands up and readies ‘Personal Space Bubble Speech 27’.

“Barton said you filed your phone,” Tony says, he lowers his arms and reaches into his pocket pulling out a shiny new phone. It’s one of the ones that Stiles has been drooling over, though would definitely not have been the one that he’d get. Even with his upgrade it would have been like $200 bucks. He’s got better stuff to spend his money on.

“I can’t take that,” Stiles says. He _really_ wants it, he wants to cuddle it and name it George and fill it with pictures and apps and send pictures of himself holding it to Danny with ‘see what I’ve got’.

“Sure you can, consider it payment for letting me take pictures of your neck.”

******************************************************************************

Stiles learns that even if Tony tells him that yes, okay, he’ll let Stiles wade through the bureaucracy of figuring his own department out, well he’s _actually_ going to completely ignore him.

He learns this when he comes into his office two days after Tony broke in and somehow reprogrammed the locks to allow Stiles, Crawford and the Avengers as a whole access, and locked everyone else out. IT is working on it but every time they manage to reprogram them the program rewrites itself.

He walks in and finds Crawford drooling over Rosetta Stone boxes in all the languages they’d had on their white board (as well as a few that weren’t there) and petting his own new shiny phone.

“Pick your battles, Stiles,” Crawford advises him. “Agent Markoff has had requisitions in for almost seven months for just the Russian and Latin versions, and they certainly wouldn’t have given us new phones that are smarter than our computers and could probably do our jobs given half a chance and actual bodies.”

“He’s going to think he owns us,” Stiles mutters, he doesn’t mention the likelihood that the phones are bugged because of Crawford hasn’t figured that out, well, he’s not as smart as Stiles thinks he is.

******************************************************************************

Stiles meets Dr. Banner when Tony finally programs enough appointments into his phone and directly with Crawford that eventually he has to show up for one or run the risk of Crawford dragging him there like a recalcitrant child kicking and screaming the entire way.

Tony shoves him into a shiny metal tube and runs a gamut of ‘normal’ tests on him. He’d already taken half his blood supply, plucked hair from his head and made him pee in a cup (thankfully he was allowed privacy for that, though only because he shut the door in Tony’s face when he was making like he was going to follow him).

It’s very boring in the metal tube and he’s hoping that Tony hasn’t forgotten about him and wandered off to do other, more important, things. At the very least he knows he won’t be stuck here indefinitely, someone will eventually, hopefully, miss him. And Crawford had been the one to send him here to be poked and prodded so he’s almost sure if he doesn’t reappear at some point Crawford will _also_ be the one to notify Agent Coulson who will then send either Clint or Natasha to come force Tony to release him from captivity.

He doesn’t need any of that, because after about an eternity (the clock in the corner of the room says it’s been an hour and 17 minutes but Stiles doesn’t trust it) Tony lets him out.

“So am I dying of some rare as of yet never seen before form of cancer?” Stiles says, his arm still hurts from where Tony had taken the blood.

That’s when he notices the other guy, head bent close to Tony’s as they peruse a pile of papers that are most likely about him.

“Agent Stilinksi, Dr. Bruce Banner,” Tony waves a hand but doesn’t look back at him.

“Hello,” Bruce kind of smiles a small, closed-mouthed smile at him. Stiles tries not to think about the fact that if he gets pissed off he turns into a giant green monster that can level city blocks and take out flying alien monsters.

“Hi, and Specialist,” Stiles says, he pulls a t-shirt and sweat pants on because he’s cold and also really underdressed.

“What?” Tony looks up, he looks perplexed, it’s amusing in a way.

“Specialist, not Agent. I’m pretty sure Agents get paid a lot more than me,” Stiles says, he crosses his arms over his chest and kind of huddles in on himself for warmth. He’s really cold for some reason; maybe the blood loss is kicking in? Either that or Tony turned the air on.

“Oh, I could have sworn…” Tony shakes his head.

“So?” Stiles waves a hand at the print outs that they’re still mostly bent over.

“You’re human,” Bruce says, he shrugs a little.

“I didn’t realize that was in doubt.”

“You are distressingly _normal_ ,” Tony says, he walks over to him, poking him in the arm that he’d taken the blood from, it hurts so Stiles smacks a hand in his direction. He pokes him in the neck a couple of times and then wanders over to another table that probably doesn’t contain printouts and biological material that in the wrong hands could be used to create another him.

“Did you think you were going to shove me in a shiny metal tube and find a well of magic in the base of my neck or something?” Stiles asks, because that’s hilarious and if it’s true then he needs to share it with everyone.

“No, of course not,” Tony scoffs. Bruce rolls his eyes at him and Stiles just sort of grins.

Stiles could have just told him that there’s nothing special about him and saved his blood supply and almost 2 hours of his day. Next time he’ll learn to keep his mouth shut about things that don’t have rational explanations.

Unless they’re werewolves, vampires, gnomes, fairies, etc, etc, etc.

******************************************************************************

Clint is waiting in his office when he gets back. He actually jumps when he walks in because he hadn’t been expecting someone and then there was someone perched in the corner of his office like a gargoyle.

It’s like being back home and having Derek hovering outside his window or behind his door waiting to demand things from him.

At least he doesn’t have a weapon out which means that he’s not there to kill him.

“I thought you told us to avoid vampires when at all possible,” Clint says, Stiles blinks at him because what the fuck?

He realizes after a second that Clint is looking at his arm, “Oh, Tony, I probably would have had more fun with a vampire, at least I would have gotten off before dying of blood loss.”

Clint huffs a sound that could probably be a laugh so Stiles doesn’t die of embarrassment when he replays what he just said in his head.

******************************************************************************

“The Avengers seem to have adopted me,” Stiles says at one of his mandatory meetings with Coulson. “How do I get them to _unadopt_ me?”

“You could not display knowledge that they don’t have and means to prove it through personal experiences,” Coulson says, though his tone asks him why he would want to.

“Alright,” Stiles agrees. “As long as you get them to stop running into werewolves and vampires.”

“It was only the one vampire,” Coulson says. “And we did okay with that last werewolf pack once Steve actually realized they were werewolves and went through the protocol list that you made up.”

No one had died and Stiles hadn’t even had to leave the Helicarrier, he’d actually only found out about it when Steve had sought him out (the only Avenger besides Thor who isn’t actually based on Earth at the moment to not have already done so) to pat him on the shoulder and thank him for his assistance.

******************************************************************************


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. More coming on Sunday.

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 8/?**

It seems near impossible that Christmas is coming up as fast as it is. Stiles doesn’t have time to worry about it though, other than the periodic phone calls home where Lydia and Scott both remind him that he has promised to return this year.

He doesn’t have time to worry because he’s been mostly focused on SHIELD and his activities there but he’s also got two semesters of college left. The classes that he has left are mostly ones that he left for the end because they’re the interesting ones.

He’s been taking the courses through correspondence, something that his professors and SHIELD had agreed upon. He does the reading when he goes back to his room at night, works on the papers that he needs to submit in the hour of spare time that he has on Sundays and tests during his lunch on alternate Thursday’s.

“You know SHIELD is not going to fire you if you decide not to finish, right?” Crawford asks when he comes back from lunch by himself to find Stiles staring at his computer screen blankly.

“There’s supposed to be a test,” Stiles says, he waves a hand at his computer which is refusing to allow him to log in and take it.

And he _does_ have to take the test, he _does_ have to finish college because he’d started it and he hates leaving things half done and besides, he wouldn’t have even got hired by SHIELD if not for the fact that he was in college in the first place.

******************************************************************************

“What does everyone want for Christmas?” Stiles asks, he’s asking Danny because Lydia would focus on herself, Jackson would focus on _himself_ , Derek would growl at him about the holidays, Scott would shrug and say ‘I don’t know’ and Allison would want to give everyone weapons (which is not necessarily a bad thing but also not very personal).

Stiles doesn’t have a problem getting everyone weapons, he just isn’t going to be able to put them in his luggage which means he would have to ship them, which means that he should have been asking that question of Allison about a month ago.

“I’ll send you an e-mail with a link to everyone’s wishlists,” Danny says.

“Did everyone fill one out?” Stiles asks, he’s actually kind of shocked but not really. Danny had threatened to make everyone fill out holiday wish lists two years prior. “How did you manage that?”

“I asked, and also maybe threatened them with matching Christmas sweaters with their names embroidered on them and nothing else. Isaac actually has that on his list but everyone else bowed down.”

“Huh.”

“I’ll warn you that Lydia’s list is filled with really expensive crap, Allison’s is loaded down with weapons and Derek for some reason wants a Keurig.”

“That’s because no one can agree on coffee at the pack meetings,” Stiles says, he remembers hearing Erica mutter something about it the last time he’d talked to her. “I call the Keurig, or at the very least an assortment of flavored and non-flavored coffees.”

******************************************************************************

He sets his leave request on Coulson’s desk prior to the Thursday 14:30 meeting.

Coulson doesn’t say anything or pick it up, he probably already knows what it is, he probably knew that Stiles was filling it out when he did so because all the offices have cameras in them. (He’s been assured that personal quarters don’t have surveillance but he’s not sure how willing he is to believe that).

“You’ll miss Stark’s Christmas party,” Coulson says finally and Stiles sort of shrugs, he’d got the invitation in inter-office mail. A very expensive envelope, a handwritten card in handwriting not Tony’s, so probably Ms. Potts.

“I promised I’d go home for Christmas, Lydia has a list of vile and horribly painful things that she’ll do to me if I skip out,” he says. He’s gone home every year since he went away for school, that doesn’t mean that he spends every last waking second with the pack.

He’s got his own demands for his visit home this year, this year they’re going to tell dad. He thinks that sharing the existence of werewolves (and all the other supernatural shit that is out there) is just going to make life that much simpler for everyone involved.

“Besides, the Avengers might miss the party as a whole if things don’t settle down for them,” Stiles says. Coulson inclines his head to concede the point.

The Avengers are somewhere that is above Stiles’ pay scale (though Clint had come to wave goodbye at him, he’d been on the phone at the time on hold with IT), they haven’t sent him any requests so he’s assuming they’re fighting just regular, standard villains of the terrorist sort and not the kind that come with extra accessories like fangs or claws or fairy dust.

******************************************************************************

When he gets bored with the papers he’s slowly sorting through he goes to the books, 95% of them aren’t in English. He finds the one that looks like a Hunter’s Journal after doing some digging looking for something that talks about demon dogs.

He keeps finding references to Hellhounds but no one source can seem to agree on where they come from and who commands them.

The book is old, there’s a date at the front that indicates that someone had been writing in it in 1936. The handwriting is all the same throughout the color of ink changes and there are crude sketches every ten pages or so.

It’s fascinating and he wonders if Allison’s family does this. If Chris Argent has his own journal of the creatures that he fights and kills, if he’s teaching Allison to keep track of the same thing.

“Hello,” Allison says.

“You ever heard of a Hunter family named Dreymona?” Stiles asks, he’s got the book open in front of him. The language doesn’t look familiar in the least. He thumbs through a few pages.

The name is the only thing written in the front. Like a journal or a diary, the handwriting looks slightly feminine in its curves but Stiles knows that doesn’t mean anything because Jackson has handwriting that is similar.

“It sounds Romany,” Allison says. “It doesn’t sound familiar though, so not a family my family has interacted with. Why?”

“Just a name I read somewhere,” Stiles says. He can’t give her any more than that without breaking a bunch of different regulations.

“I can ask my dad when he gets back; he’s still got some feelers out in the Hunter community. Someone might recognize the name if was a Hunter family.”

“That would be awesome, thanks Allison.”

“You’re coming right? Because you know how Lydia gets, and she’s not the only one this time. I think Scott and Isaac have a calendar counting down the days.”

“How do they even know when I’m coming in?” He hasn’t sent his itinerary out to anyone, but only because he just bought his tickets that morning.

Allison is silent for a second before she clears her throat.

“Tell him that he needs to stop doing that shit if he doesn’t want people to take notice.”

“Derek put him up to it, and so did your dad, so it wasn’t just him checking to keep Lydia from having a mental fit. It was you know, all of them.”

Stiles sighs, he’s an adult, he’s sure of this. But sometimes he thinks they all think of him as the seventeen year old human kid that kept fucking up.

“Hey, how are you coming on the anti-vampire arrowheads, any luck?”

“Some,” Allison allows him to change the subject. “I should have a rough prototype to try out in the next couple of days, the trick is the head and the fact that the body needs to be stable enough to withstand being shot and hitting and not breaking apart prior to doing so because it actually needs to penetrate the skin, but strong enough to be a through and through. Why?”

“I was thinking belated Christmas present for Clint,” Stiles says. He can hear the smile in Allison’s laughter.

“Hey now that you’re all buddy, buddy with the Avengers how about an introductions for those of us that couldn’t go into pack territory?”

“I’m not buddy, buddy with the Avengers,” Stiles states firmly. “They just…” ‘ _keep hanging around even though they’ve really got no reason to continue doing so_ ’ he doesn’t say, because if nothing else he owns his lousy self-esteem, but he also knows when not to put in on display for others to see.

“Still,” Allison says.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

******************************************************************************

“I need to go Christmas shopping,” Stiles says at breakfast, he and Crawford are both working through the Rosetta Stone in Arabic and working (slowly) through four books simultaneously. There’s some really awesome drawing of Ogre’s as well as two eye witness accounts detailing their encounters and subsequent dispatches.

“Big stuff, little stuff?”

“Stuff that I can carry on an airplane,” Stiles says, he’d already bought the Keurig for Derek and shipped it to his dads, and bought the calculator that Lydia had on her list followed by six exclamation points and shipped that as well.

“You’re not spending Christmas here?” Crawford says, he sounds and actually looks disappointed.

“I think my family might actually _kill_ me if I decide to skip out, or possibly hunt me down and drag me home but my non-existent hair.”

He certainly doesn’t put it past any one of them.

“We can take a transport down into the city, I guess,” Crawford says, he tears his toast into shreds and uses it to sop up the egg yolk left on his plate. “What are we looking for?”

“I’ve got a list,” Stiles assures him, it’s folded up in his wallet with stars next to the items he’s getting for people, “I know exactly what I need.”

Danny’s wishlist idea had been helpful and really user friendly, he’s already marked off the items that he’s getting so no one else purchases them. Though two of a couple of the items probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.

They’re already in civilian clothes so they deposit their trays at the window and head towards transportation. On the weekends there’s always a shuttle set aside to ferry people back and forth unless they’re in the middle of an operation or the ocean. This close to the Christmas season, they’re sticking pretty close to land unless circumstances dictate the need to do otherwise.

The shuttle is full when they get there, everyone packed in like sardines and it’s probably not safe by any stretch of the imagination. Stiles is sure there are points where his feet aren’t actually touching the ground and he’s held up by the people around him.

They all spill out of the shuttle in a loud boisterous mess, Crawford catches his arm so they don’t get separated and they get pulled along by the mess of people heading for the stairs instead of the elevators.

“Where to first?” Crawford says when they hit the street, his cheeks are red and he’s winding his scarf tighter around his neck as Stiles goes to pull his wallet out of his pocket to get his list.

That’s what he remembers going forward. Crawford’s cheeks red from the cold, eyes shining and happy, the bustle of people around him and then…

And then Crawford’s eyes going wide, other hands, hard and unforgiving and definitely not _known_ , pulling at his arms and Crawford yelling and trying to dart forward.

Someone lunges forward at him, a streak of blurred motion and Stiles’ panicked mind thinks ‘ _not human_ ’ even as he watches in horror as Crawford goes down in a heap blood on his face.

Stiles yells, he thinks he yells, he’s positive; he’s sure that ‘ _no_ ’ and ‘ _Crawford_ ’ and other noises come out of his mouth. The hands on his arms are pulling and he’s struggling, dragging his feet trying to get traction to keep from being moved back but the hands are strong, and he stumbles back almost going down on his ass when he hits a curb.

He feels the prick in his neck, right on the side and it hurts, burns and his vision goes hazy almost immediately and the ‘help’ that he was going to yell dies in his throat as it all goes dark.

******************************************************************************


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Change in viewpoints, for this chapter only.

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 9/?**

_Day One_ :

Crawford comes to in an ambulance, there’s a SHIELD uniform to the right of the medic and his head is throbbing in time with his heartbeat which is throbbing in time with his wrist and every other pain in his body.

“Stiles,” he yells, because there were hands on the Stiles’ arms pulling him away and everyone was screaming and panicking and no one was helping and then _something_ had hit him.

And now he’s here, struggling against his arms and legs being strapped down. And _there’s no Stiles_.

“Calm down, sir,” the medic says, he presses a cloth to his forehead and he twists his head to see that there is already a bloody one to the right of him.

“Stiles? Where’s Stiles?” he asks, his heart feels like it’s up in his throat and the guy in the SHIELD uniform shakes his head. He’s pressing a finger to his ear which means he has an ear piece in.

“We’re looking for him,” the uniform says and the medic presses the cloth tighter to his forehead as he blinks away the moisture in his eyes that is _not_ tears.

******************************************************************************

Steve gets the call because he’s team leader and it’s his job to break bad news to the team. He really _hates_ that part of his job though normally it doesn’t mean anything because 3/4 of the time Tony intercepts whatever the calls is and breaks it in that ‘Tony’ way that he has.

Tony doesn’t intercept _this_ one though; he kind of wished he had. He struggles with the decision, what to do and he decides that the mission is important enough that he needs everyone’s head in the game and focused. He doesn’t need them distracted by things they can’t change and information they don’t have.

So he waits until the job is finished, Tony making noises about going out for drinks.

They’re in stripped down versions of their uniforms, Bruce is stitching up a long gash along Clint’s shoulder blade while Clint continually tells him that he doesn’t need him to do so.

“So the thing is,” he starts, the room as a whole looks over at him with the exception of Tony who’s frowning at the wet bar like it insulted him personally.

“Cap?” Natasha says, she must see something in his face, hear something in his voice. She _definitely_ knows whatever he’s going to tell them is bad news because her posture straightens and she’s got her hand already gripping her gun.

_She’s_ not the one whose reaction he’s worried about though.

“Steve?” Tony prods, he’s got one of the little bottles of scotch in his hand, he’s not opened it yet, probably waiting for ice to be delivered or something.

“Someone grabbed Stiles off the street,” he says, he winces at the roar of denial. Bruce has one hand on Clint’s shoulder holding him down, the other pressed to the wound he wasn’t finished stitching up.

“Agent Coulson has us scheduled on the first transport out,” he says, Natasha moves to Bruce’s side, hand coming to rest on Clint’s arm.

“Who took him?” Clint snaps, he’s not trying to shrug off Bruce and Natasha’s hands any longer, Steve doesn’t let that fool him into believing he’s actually calmed down any.

“They don’t know.”

******************************************************************************

He’s not supposed to be home, he’d only come back to grab a folder that he’d left locked in his office and to grab a snack.

The one thing that Stiles did prior to leaving for college was train his deputies in acceptable and non-acceptable forms of food for their Sheriff. They watch him almost closer than Stiles ever had, and its times when his box of Ho-Ho’s disappears from his desk or they order in lunch, with the extra-large salad for him that he misses his boy.

They don’t search his house though, that’s Stiles’ domain and even though Stiles comes home infrequently he can have the house thoroughly searched from top to bottom for contraband food and beverages within an hour of walking through the door.

The homeless shelter and Stiles’ friends love that part of his return home because it means that all the food that Stiles’ doesn’t want going into his father’s body has to go somewhere that isn’t in their house.

He’s got the folder he needs in hand, has the last bag of chips in the house in the other and is just walking toward the front door when the doorbell goes off.

No one comes by, not unannounced and Scott has already been by once this week to check up on him so he knows that it’s not any of Stiles’ friends. They have a schedule, Isaac will be next.

He shoves the folder under his arm and opens the door to find two suits standing there, well-dressed, they both look somber.

His heart jumps up into his throat and he maybe whispers Stiles’ name.

“Sheriff Stilinski?” the one at the door, the one who rang the bell asks.

“Yes?” he says, he… just stands there. Scott comes around the corner of the house, running at breakneck speed and he looks, there’s something very _wrong_ with his face.

“I’m Agent Coulson, this is Agent Sitwell, we’re from SHIELD.”

“Where’s Stiles?” Scott asks as he comes up on the porch; he leapt over the railing but that can’t be right, his face is normal now, no sign of whatever had been wrong with it just seconds before, he’ll ask the questions later but not right now.

“Mr. McCall,” Agent Coulson inclines his head. “And where’s the rest of your pack?”

“They’ll be here, they’re coming. _Where is Stiles_?”

“Sheriff, maybe we should take this inside?” Agent Coulson says and he nods, pushes open the screen door and Agents walk in, both calm, collected. Maybe there’s nothing wrong, maybe he’s reading something into this situation that isn’t there.

Scott puts a hand on his back and directs him towards the living room, pushes him gently down on the couch, leaves and comes back with water that he presses into his hand, a plate of cookies of that he sets on the coffee table.

The Agents sit there, perched in chairs that Stiles sat in; that he jumped off the backs off into his father’s waiting arms; chairs that he curled up in his mother’s arms in before she passed.

He blinks and Melissa is there, sitting next to him finger pressed to his wrist and it takes him a moment to realize that she’s not a figment of his imagination, and also she’s taking his pulse. There are others there too; loud noises and commotions while the Agents sit there silently, not telling him anything.

“He was in your protection, we let him stay because he wanted it and you assured us that he was under your protection,” Derek Hale is snarling. He doesn’t know when Derek showed up; he knows that he’s one of Stiles’ friends.

“Derek,” he says, his voice sounds rough and unused to his own ears and Melissa squeezes his arm, Lydia has somehow appeared on his other side and she lays her own hand on him. “Son, let them tell us what happened.”

Derek snarls, his eyes flash red which must be a trick of the light but there’s a movement in the corner of his eye and he can see Chris Argent standing there and when did so many people show up in his house, he doesn’t… where did they all come from, why are they all _here_?

“He was going Christmas shopping with a friend of his, Specialist Crawford,” Agent Coulson is saying. “They took a SHIELD transport into the city with other personnel; he was grabbed off the street. Specialist Crawford was knocked out during the fight, came to in an ambulance to a SHIELD medical facility, there were witnesses but none of them can agree on how many there were, we do know that taking Agent Stilinski was their motive.”

He closes his eyes, Melissa presses a hand to the back of his neck and it’s cool, comforting, Stiles mom used to do the same when it got to be too much.

This is too much.

******************************************************************************

_Day Two_ :

Clint is not flying; they have a pilot that normally flies them because Coulson made some call years ago that said that Clint can’t _always_ be the one behind the wheel.

He’s not flying, he’s sitting there, with his hands in his lap trying not to think about the fact that it’s been almost 24 hours since Stiles was taken.

Christmas shopping, he was fucking _Christmas shopping_ and now he’s missing and Crawford has a concussion and a gash across his temple that took four stitches and two black eyes and broken arm.

“We’re going to the tower,” Steve says, he’s Steve right now, not Captain America even though he’s in uniform with the cowl down.

“Why? We could get more information on the Helicarrier?” Natasha asks.

“Coulson said go to the tower, so we’re going to the tower,” Steve says. His tone brooks no argument. Clint doesn’t feel like arguing, he feels like shooting something and he will as soon as somebody gives him a target and they let him have his weapons back.

******************************************************************************

They’re led to a conference room that he’s never been in before, and he realizes as soon as they enter why they came here instead of the Helicarrier. Stiles’ pack is huddled around one side of the table, there’s a man sitting there in a Sheriff’s uniform looking pale and shocked, Stiles’ father he thinks.

Not exactly the circumstances they’d thought to meet the remainder of Stiles’ family under.

“What do we know?” Steve asks, Clint knows that even though he sounds stiff and formal inside he’s furious. Someone took something that wasn’t theirs to take.

“We’re just waiting, for…” Coulson says and the door that had closed behind them opens again for Agent Hill and Crawford.

He looks…

The kid looks like shit, like he’s having the worst day of his entire life and it just keeps going on and on and on. He goes to the chair that he’s directed to and sort of folds into it, the rest of the Avengers spread themselves around the room.

Hale looks like he’s about four seconds from losing his shit and Clint can understand that. Natasha had said take things slow, be the nice guy, be his friend, _don’t be a stalker_.

And now Stiles is gone and they have no idea why or who took him.

“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” Coulson is prompting. Crawford still looks dazed and confused, obviously medicated to some degree; he rubs at the side of his head with his casted arm and winces.

“We were going Christmas shopping, he…” Crawford twines his fingers together. “He wanted stuff that he could take home with him that wouldn’t get him strip-searched by TSA.”

“Wait a minute; he was going home for Christmas?” Tony asks sounding all affronted, he’s got his cell phone out and is probably texting Pepper to change the date or something. “When did that happen, he’s going to miss the party.”

“He was _always_ coming home for Christmas, it was part of our deal,” Lydia snaps.

“People,” Coulson says, he doesn’t yell, he doesn’t need to, the room quiets immediately.

“He’s been having stuff delivered to the house that wouldn’t fit in luggage,” his father says, there’s woman sitting next to him, hand wrapped around his wrist, Scott McCall is standing directly behind her hand on her shoulder. Probably his mother or another family member.

“Crawford,” Coulson prompts.

“We took the transport down,” Crawford says. “It was full, you know, Christmas and such, we took the stairs because the elevator moves like molasses. When we got down to street level I asked him what we were looking for and he said he had a list and he went for his wallet. I think he had it folded up in there, we’d stopped on the street and I was tightening my scarf and he was going for his wallet and…” Crawford’s voice breaks. There’s grief there.

“Do you know how many of them there were, son?” Steve asks gently.

“Three on the street,” Crawford says softly, he’s got a hand covering his eyes, probably hiding the fact that he’s crying or about to.

“There was another in the car, they moved…” he takes a deep breath and lowers his hand, his eyes are red but not wet. “They moved really fast, two of them had grabbed Stiles, the other one,” he shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “Stiles was yelling, struggling, I was going to,” he laughs harshly, bitterly. “I was going to try and _help_ him and the third one just, he flew at me, knocked me on my ass, I think he must have had a knife or something in his hand because,” he waves a hand at his temple. “He knocked my head into the sidewalk and I don’t remember anything else until the ambulance.”

“You said they moved fast,” Hale says. “Did they look… odd?”

Crawford looks at him, blinks once twice. “The one that came at me had,” he makes a face, “his face looked weird… like he had facial hair but it was kind of wrong?”

“What about his eyes?” The other Hale, Peter, asks.

“Blue, I think, I didn’t really get that great a look at his face,” Crawford says apologetically, he looks down at his hands.

“Regular blue or…” Peter pauses, long enough that Crawford looks up and everyone else looks over.

Clint doesn’t think it surprises any of them that the kid almost tips his chair over to get away from the table. It’s more of a confirmation than any agreement or words would have been.

“So werewolves,” Hale says. “What packs do we know that expressed an interest in Stiles?”

“Which ones didn’t,” Peter says. “He turned down two Alpha’s, he’s like the holy grail of humans; add onto that the fact that he’s affiliated with SHIELD; this could either be a really messy way of someone trying to force an alliance with us or someone looking to trade him back to SHIELD for something else.”

“Two Alphas?” the older man in the corner of the room asks, Clint thinks that’s Chris Argent, one of the two Hunters allied with Hale’s pack that hadn’t been allowed in Laurentville. “Since when did Stiles turn down two Alphas?”

“Peter offered before, you know, we killed him,” Scott says the room as a whole turns to look at where Peter is _very much_ alive and smirking, “I remember Stiles telling me about it. I don’t remember him mentioning anyone…”

“I offered him the bite,” Hale says, “when he was trying to decide whether to go away for school or stay locally,” he scowls. “He laughed at me.”

“Dr. Deaton and I have been discussing young Mr. Stilinski and we don’t believe that even if he had accepted the bite that it would have taken,” Peter says, he links his fingers together behind his head and smiles at the room like he knows a secret that no one else does. Clint wants to punch him in his smirking face.

“You think he’s immune?” Argent asks. “Like Lydia?”

“I think he’s something else already.”

“He’s human,” Tony says. “We did tests, normal ones, don’t look at me like that Coulson, he’s just a normal, regular, really smart human that happens to know a whole bunch of shit about the supernatural.”

“Scott, you remember the rave yes? I wasn’t, hmm, around then. But Deaton has told me that he gave Stiles a task. A very _specific_ task that only he could carry out.”

“The mountain ash circle,” Scott nods, though his face makes an odd pained expression. “Because he’s not a werewolf and he could handle it, yeah I remember it.”

“He wasn’t given enough.”

“He completed the circle,” Hale says. “I know because I had to have him break it in order to get to Scott.”

Argent looks away, the young woman who must be his daughter looks at the ground and bites her lip.

“He wasn’t given enough,” Peter says. “It was a test of something that Deaton had long since suspected.”

“He’s human,” Tony insists stubbornly. Bruce is nodding his agreement from next to Natasha.

“He finished the circle,” Hale says, Clint looks to his father and Stiles’ dad has his head bent.

“He finished the circle because he believed he could. He walked the line and he knew he could do it, the power of belief, the strength of his conviction that _this was his task and he would not fail at it_.”

“He’s magic,” Clint says quietly. “A witch, a wizard something like that.”

“Something like that, they don’t have wands or staffs, they don’t set up covens and there are no schools, they are, like most supernatural creatures, infinitely more dangerous than their literary counterparts. They are also very hard to find because while they have distinctive scents they very rarely ally with other creatures, they prefer a solitary existence. This is something that would have been passed through a bloodline,” Peter says, he looks over at where the Sheriff still has his head bent.

“It’s a diluted bloodline,” the Sheriff says. “There’s not enough power to do much of anything.”

“I beg to differ, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“This is all well and good but it still doesn’t help us find Stiles or figure out who took him,” Steve says.

“The Laurentville pack,” Hale mutters.

“We checked, their pack Alpha, Darren is still there, he’s not left the town in months.”

“Then someone else with the pack,” Argent says.

“Do you know something, heard of movement in the city?” Hale asks.

“There’s four packs in New York City, none of them would have dared move on Stiles since we have treaties with all of them for Stiles to be here,” Danny says.

“It’s someone from Laurentville,” Argent says insistently. “My gut says Laurentville is the key here.”

“Do we have a list of the pack members from Laurentville?” Coulson asks, there’s a flurry of motion and Stark has his phone out, probably hacking the network to get the information faster.

“Tulliver, Cromley, Abbott, Masters, Dreymona, Sullivan,” Tony reads off.

“Wait, what?” Argent holds up a hand and takes a step forward.

“What?”

“A name you said,” Allison’s eyes are wide as she looks at her father.

“Abbott, Masters, Dreymona.”

“Dreymona,” Argent says, he looks over at Allison. “Isn’t that the name that?”

“Yeah,” she nods and she’s nudging Danny out of the way to get to his laptop.

“Stiles asked Allison to look for a Hunter family by the name of Dreymona,” Argent says as Allison’s fingers fly over the keyboard. “Said he’d hear the name somewhere.”

“We have a journal for someone named Dreymona,” Crawford says slowly. “Stiles has been working on translating it but it’s in some form of code in a language base that neither one of us is familiar with.”

“There’s no Hunter family named Dreymona, not anymore,” Allison says. “They were mostly killed in Poland during the war, there was one surviving family member, a girl, Sylvia but she vanished off the radar in 1937.”

“How does a family of Hunters become a family of werewolves?”

“One werewolf, Ferris Dreymona, poor kid,” Tony says. He does something with his tablet and the picture of the kid, because that’s what he is, a kid, maybe eighteen or so, flashes on the wall.

Clint stares at it, ingrains it into his memory.

Because there’s his next target.

******************************************************************************

“Why would he take Stiles?” he asks, Steve is sitting with him while the others get something to eat. It seems slightly surreal to be sitting here with Captain ‘ _call me Steve_ ’ America both of them worrying about his son.

At least the worrying about Stiles thing is something he’s familiar with; he can do this with his hands tied behind his back.

“Death wish?” Steve asks and he laughs a little. Because he’s probably not wrong, you take someone like Stiles. Someone who’s day job is working for SHIELD and whose side job is apparently being one of the humans in a pack of werewolves, well you’re putting a target on your back and just waiting for the inevitable bullet.

“My son,” he shakes his head. “If there’s a bad situation, if there’s something awful and wrong going on he’s going to be right smack in the middle of it. I used to, I used to worry that he was in a gang or doing drugs, I used to worry that he was going to get himself killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time _all the time_ and I’d end up burying my son like I buried my wife,” he covers his face with his hands.

“We’re going to find him, and we’re going to find whoever took him and we’re going to make sure they pay for taking him in the first place,” Steve promises.

He believes him; he has no choice _but_ to believe him.

******************************************************************************

_Day Three_ :

Clint is shooting arrows at targets in the range because it’s the only place that he’s being allowed weapons.

Coulson has already stopped in once, peering at him, nodding once and walking away. If he finds that he’s been removed from the mission roster he’s going to be pissed.

“He talks about you,” he hears from behind him and he lets the arrow fly before he turns, he already knows where it’s going to hit.

He’s got a printout of Ferris Dreymona taped to his targets, head shots all of them, even though Coulson won’t authorize a headshot.

“Who does?” he asks, even though the only person that Allison Argent would be talking to that would mention him would be Stiles.

Allison just rolls her eyes at him, it was a silly question.

“He’s got me working on projects that I really don’t have time for, but Stiles says please, and thank you, and not many people do.”

“Arrow heads,” he says, because that’s what it has to be. The arrow heads that he requested that Stiles has never once mentioned.

Allison just twists her lips at him.

******************************************************************************

The four packs in New York City are looking for him, Derek knows this, he still thinks he should be on the street as well.

This is one of his packmates in trouble, one of his humans, he snarls and Pete raises an eyebrow at him.

“You never told me you thought Stiles had magic,” he says, instead of explaining his frustration at their non-movement.

Scott could track Stiles faster, Jackson and Isaac as well. They know his scent already. To be refused the opportunity to join in the search… it just seems asinine. Stiles would be annoyed and prodding Derek to search regardless of what the other Pack Alpha’s said.

“You can kind of smell it on him,” Peter says, he crosses his arm over his chest. “Faint but there, the smell of something other. It took me a while to place it, because he smells like his father as well as the pack and none of that is not normal.”

“You should have said something,” Derek says, Peter just shrugs noncommittally. Nothing Derek says is going to change what is already done.

“Why do you think the boy took him?” Peter asks, his face is full of speculation, he has ideas.

“The boy was from a line of Hunters made into a line of wolves, if he’d been taught his Hunter heritage it could be a death wish to end the line,” Derek says.

“Or it could be something much more complicated.”

The door flies open and Derek takes a defensive position, Peter right beside him.

“We found him,” Scott says breathlessly, “We found him.”

******************************************************************************

_Day Four_ :

Tony had apparently bugged his phone; Coulson hadn’t seemed at all surprised at that fact. The only bad thing was apparently the bug would only work when the phone was turned on and Stiles had turned it off, most likely when they were on the transport and not had the opportunity to turn it _back_ on.

Clint is sure that Tony will be working on that issue or implanting Stiles with something permanent once this is resolved.

Coulson makes them wait while they get cameras in place, agents going to ground. Derek’s and his wolves are taking point and nobody bristles because in a fight with wolves they probably want wolves to pit up against them.

“No shots unless ordered,” Coulson says, he says it to all of them but he’s looking directly at Clint. He makes a face but nods his agreement.

“And no killing him unless we have no other recourse,” Coulson says this to the wolves; Hale scowls as if to say ‘you are not the boss of me’. Clint thinks he has every intention of gutting Ferris Dreymona, Coulson’s orders be damned.

They’ve got him in a warehouse, at least that’s where the signal from Stiles’ phone is coming from. So there’s hope that he’s still there alongside his phone.

The wolves filter in and Clint finds a ladder and gets himself to a second floor landing. Creeping along in the dark on light feet, bow at the ready.

Somewhere on the other side of the building is Natasha. The warehouse is partitioned into four distinct areas; it is empty and dusty though he can hear noise coming from the back half so that’s where he heads. Swinging under and over pipes and beams.

He smells blood pretty much as soon as he crosses into the back area, it almost stops him and there’s a thin line of dread trying to creep up his spine into his brain.

There are little to no lights going in this area, but it’s lit enough that he can see a chair in the center of the room, Stiles chained to it. There’s blood on his face, dark spots on his shirt and jeans, a puddle of it on the floor.

He taps his earpiece twice ‘agent found’ and hears a tap back ‘confirmed, sending reinforcements’.

It’s a silent mission, no voices because the one thing they learned about Laurentville was that the werewolves could hear things being spoken through their earpieces.

He notches an arrow, takes aim, doesn’t take the shot because he needs a vocal cue or three taps.

There’s movement and someone moves into his line of sight, he waits for them to shift further into the light and it is Ferris Dreymona, he looks angry and his finger twitches to release the arrow when Dreymona hits Stiles.

Stiles doesn’t make a sound, he’s clearly unconscious, it doesn’t seem to matter to the wolf who hits him again. And again.

He’s going to take the shot, regardless of the fact the order hasn’t come, he’s going to because Stiles is down there chained to a chair, being used as a punching bag by a werewolf who clearly has some anger management issues.

Hale is there suddenly, snarling and angry, he can see his bright, glowing red eyes from the distance and Dreymona turns snarls wordlessly back before Derek leaps.

They go down in a tangle of limbs and claws and there’s a moment where Derek’s head tips back and he howls, it’s eerie and sends shivers down his spine, there are answering howls so he knows that its purpose is most likely to call the remainder of his pack to him. He claws at Dreymona and draws blood.

He obviously intends to kill the other wolf; Clint can’t find it in himself to really care. He’s so focused on watching the fight, not really even listening for a verbal cue or three clicks of the radio anymore that he misses Stiles’ coming to.

Stiles will tell them later that it was Derek’s howl calling the pack that sank into the darkness after him, he’s not a wolf but he’s still pack.

“Derek, stop,” he hears and his eyes fly to the right where Stiles’ eyes are barely open. Derek snarls.

“Derek,” Stiles whispers, Clint can barely hear it where he is but Derek stops, hand halting where he obviously had been going to plunge claws into Dreymona’s chest to rip out his stomach or something.

They’re looking at each other and then Stiles’ head drops, chin touching his chest, passing out from the pain and the blood loss, Derek howls again and Clint lowers his bow because he’s not going to shoot anyone.

Not yet anyway, he reserves the right to put an arrow in Hale if he lays a hand on Stiles in any way like Stiles insists he doesn’t anymore.

But until then.

“We’ve got Stiles, Dreymona is down and unfortunately still alive.”

******************************************************************************


	10. Chapter 10

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 10/?**

There’s pain, periodically there’s light and sometimes, _very_ infrequently there’s a pain free time, but mostly there’s just pain.

When he wakes finally, he’s not chained to a chair in some dark dank place; he’s in a bright room, with white sheets and beeping machines. There’s an IV in his hand and if he twists his head to the right he can see his father sleeping with his head at an angle that means his neck is going to be killing him. To the left Clint is sitting in a chair backwards staring very intently at a wall.

At the foot of the bed Scott has his head pillowed on one arm, and the hand of the other is wrapped around his ankle. Like he needs the physical proof that Stiles is very much alive and here.

Clint moves and Stiles blinks at him, there’s nothing else and it takes him a moment to realize that Clint isn’t actually staring at the wall; he’s sleeping with his eyes open.

His hand moves and Scott’s head lifts, eyes blinking at him blearily, a smile crossing his face when he sees that Stiles is awake.

“Hey,” he whispers and Stiles goes to say hey back and can’t. He coughs a bit and Scott is on his feet, cup of water in hand and straw being directed towards his mouth. He takes a few sips.

“What are you doing here?” he manages and Scott just looks at him in disbelief.

“Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

“Um.”

“You were kidnapped! By a crazy werewolf, of _course_ we came.”

“Scott, let him be,” his dad says, he wraps a hand around Stiles’ and squeezes. Clint is standing when he looks back over there, leaning out to probably summon a nurse or a doctor.

“Crawford?” he asks, because all he remembers is Crawford with blood on his face, lying in a crumpled heap on the streets of New York.

“He’s okay, broken arm, some stitches.”

“Do we know who?”

“Ferris Dreymona.”

“I know that name,” Stiles murmurs, he closes his eyes and thinks for a second, a minute. “There was a journal; Allison was going to check on the name for me.”

“They used to be a family of Hunters, the last surviving member was apparently bit in 1937 and then had kids, Ferris Dreymona is a descendant,” his dad says.

“So, uh,” he looks over at his dad who apparently is now in the know on werewolves and Hunters. He’s actually kind of sorry he missed the explanation and not just because if he’d been there he wouldn’t have been chained to a chair getting the shit beat of it him. “Werewolves are real?”

His father rolls his eyes at him. “Really? Is that what the hair and fangs and claws mean?”

******************************************************************************

Agent Coulson visits him while he’s still in the infirmary. Clint stays with him which he finds a little odd, but no one else does so he probably missed a conversation or three while he was off being kidnapped.

“So let’s talk about Ferris Dreymona,” Coulson says.

“He was a werewolf from a Hunter line,” Stiles says. “That’s what Scott said.”

“Yes, that appears to be the case, what was his interest in you?”

Stiles blinks at him, “Um, it didn’t have anything to do with SHIELD.”

“He grabbed you off a sidewalk in front of a SHIELD building, while surrounded by SHIELD employees…”

“It was sort of… kill a bunch of birds with one stone,” Stiles says.

“What do you mean?”

“He takes me, right? Because he knows if he grabs me that my pack is going to respond with force, he was… hoping that Derek and the others would come in full steam ahead to find me, he beats me up because he hopes that the smell of the blood, _my_ blood will force them to respond first and think about things after.”

“He would have died.”

“He didn’t care, bunch of birds, one stone. One crazy werewolf from a Hunter line that hates what he is and wanted to make sure the werewolf line of his Hunter family didn’t continue. If he could take a bunch of other werewolves, weaken a bunch of packs in the process, all the better.”

“What?” Clint is straightening by the door and Coulson’s arms are crossing over his chest.

“If Derek had killed him, it would have broken the treaty with Darren’s pack. It would have been an open declaration of war between the packs; Darren would have had no choice but to respond with force.”

“Is that why you stopped Hale from killing him?”

“Yeah,” Stiles has issues with Dreymona trying to turn Derek into an assassin by provocation.

“So how do we handle this? The Director wants to throw the book at him.”

“Give him back to Darren,” Stiles says, Coulson blinks at him and Clint scowls. “Give him back to Darren’s pack and allow them to mete out his punishment. Trust me it will be more severe than anything that we could do to him; packs don’t take kindly to situations like this. If Darren wants to maintain his treaty with Derek he’ll…”

Well they’ll probably kill him, Stiles doesn’t say that though. He thinks that Agent Coulson and Clint can both read between the lines enough to determine it.

******************************************************************************

His injuries, while painful are not life-threatening so he manages to cajole a doctor into grudgingly allowing him to leave.

He’ll be better when he’s back in his own bed, in his own room, he says. He hates hospitals, always has, it is in no way _restful_ for him to remain there.

He finds though that he’s not going back to his room on the Helicarrier, he’s been assigned a temporary room at the SHIELD building in the city.

The temporary room turns out to be temporary _rooms_ that he’s apparently sharing with the pack, or the pack has moved in while he was being held captive by the medical staff, he’s not really sure.

He just knows that he’s really tired, and he forewent his pain meds because he needed to be clearheaded when he left the hospital. All he _really_ wants to do is climb into bed, his real one, a temporary one, any bed would be good at this point.

Except he walks into the room, his father and Scott right behind him and finds that the pack has shoved all the furniture out of the way and made a pile of blankets and pillows in the middle of the room.

He sighs.

“Don’t give me that look,” Derek mutters, he’s in the middle of the pile on the floor, Isaac on one side Lydia on the other.

“I just want a bed,” he says, it’s not a whine, though Lydia shoots him the look that indicates that he’s being a whiny bitch and that he should just suck it up.

“It’s comfortable,” Isaac says, he’s looking at him with the wide puppy eyes which Stiles hates. Those eyes are hard to say no to, it’s why Derek normally has Isaac (or Scott) pull them out whenever they need to cajole one of the others into doing something.

He sighs again and allows Scott to maneuver him around into the center of the group, Derek is at his back and Isaac curls up next to him, growling a little when Scott goes to take his normal spot.

“I don’t see how this is going to be restful,” Stiles grumbles, there’s hands on him and he’s been in enough puppy piles by now that having Derek tight against his back and Isaac curled up in front of him doesn’t even turn him on.

“Shh,” Derek murmurs, his hand is against Stiles’ hip, breath warm against his neck.

They’re all touching him, Derek and Isaac, Allison lying between Isaac and Scott, her and Scott’s arms jointly touching his side. By his feet and legs Jackson and Boyd have hands wrapped around his ankles, Danny and Lydia’s on his calves.

He blinks his eyes open and his father is standing there with an expression that he can’t identify on his face.

He closes his eyes again and lets the warmth of his pack surround him, he sleeps.

******************************************************************************

The sound of the door opening and closing isn’t what wakes him. What wakes him is the growl coming from Derek and the way that his arm tightens around his waist.

He blinks away sleep and Clint and Steve are standing there, eyes wide. They’ve probably never seen the werewolf version of a puppy pile.

“It’ll take him a few minutes to extricate himself,” his father says with the wisdom of someone who watched Stiles try to get out of the middle of the pile to go to the bathroom hours earlier. “How about some coffee while you wait?”

They both murmur their acquiescence and follow, Stiles begins the long process of shifting himself away from his pack. Derek’s arm is always the last to be shifted because he’s normally awake by the time Stiles manages to get everyone else’s hands off him.

Stiles pats him on the head and smirks, Derek growls at the implied ‘good boy’. He’d said that once and Derek had smirked right back at him then tugged him back into the pile, it taken him 45 minutes _additional_ minutes to get himself out again and he’d been late for curfew.

He’d never done that again.

There’s a small kitchen in this set of rooms that he’s apparently to call his own until either the pack leaves or he’s allowed back on the Helicarrier. At the table is father is holding a coffee cup, Steve’s is sitting on the table in front of him untouched and Clint’s is sitting empty on the counter next to where he’s leaning.

He brushes a hand over his head and wishes that he was wearing something other than track pants and a t-shirt that’s seen better days.

“Sorry to drag you away from your orgy,” Clint mutters, he doesn’t make eye contact and Stiles looks down at himself.

Maybe this is one of his ‘go to school and find out you’re naked’ dreams.

Except no, he’s standing there in his track pants and a t-shirt that he’s had since high school and his father is sitting there with an eyebrow cocked at an angle.

“Clint, didn’t you read any of the stuff that Tony gave us on wolf packs and their dynamics and how some of their behaviors may be mirrored by the werewolf packs that we encounter?” Steve sighs.

“Puppy pile,” Stiles inputs helpfully, “it helps the wolves feel secure in a strange places.”

It also helps them protect injured pack members from further attack, it’s why they had him in the center, he’s sure.

******************************************************************************

Apparently Stiles has bodyguards, which he doesn’t think is warranted. Those bodyguards are the Avengers for the moment which Stiles thinks is kind of like throwing a nuke on an anthill.

Just a _little_ bit of overkill.

“We volunteered for it, you only got noticed by Dreymona because of the Avengers,” Steve says, all sensible voice and earnest face. “It’s only right that we make sure you stay safe.”

“Okay, but I was just planning on lying around and not doing much of anything,” Stiles says. “Also, no one is going to attack me while I’m in the middle of room of werewolves.”

“Director Fury wants you to come in and brief him on the Dreymona situation and our options,” Steve says.

“Didn’t I already do that? With the talk debrief with Coulson?” Stiles looks over at Clint who shrugs at him and doesn’t look in anyway apologetic about the orgy comment.

“Director Fury would like to hear it directly instead of through a third party.”

“So he wants me to climb into my uniform and come deliver a report that I’ve already delivered?”

Redundancy, thy name is SHIELD.

“Actually civilian clothes will probably suffice,” Clint says. “Though probably not what you’re currently wearing.”

“Well no, because these are my sleeping clothes and if I’m going to be sitting across from Director Fury and telling him that we need to hand Ferris Dreymona over to his pack for punishment then I’d like to at least shower first and have on clean underwear.”

His dad chokes on his coffee, Clint’s lips actually turn up into a sort of smile and Stiles only turns a _little_ bit red at having said underwear in front of Captain America.

******************************************************************************

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because people have asked:
> 
> Ages: I imagine the Teen Wolf cast would be around 23 to 24, Avengers ages would be close to the ages they would be in the movie.
> 
> Crawford: When I visually him when I'm writing him he's a slightly older version of Chris Colfer from Glee.


	11. Chapter 11

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 11/?**

He walks off the transport and gets attacked with hugs by Crawford.

“I thought you were supposed to be protecting me?” he says, rubbing the back of his head where Crawford had managed to hit him with his cast.

“Not from Crawford,” Clint says, he looks amused at the thought.

“You look awful,” Crawford says, he’s straightening his uniform and brushing the hand not in a cast over his head.

“Yeah, this isn’t even the worst that I’ve been beaten up,” Stiles mutters, he personally thinks he looked worse after Gerard had finished beating him up, but then Gerard had been trying to make a point and Dreymona was just trying to draw enough blood, agitate Derek or one of the others enough that they would go into a frenzy and give him what he wanted.

“So word is you want to hand Dreymona over to Darren,” Crawford says, he looks at him questioningly and follows along when Clint and Steve start propelling Stiles in the direction of Director Fury’s office.

“Well I don’t want to start a pack war, and I don’t think SHIELD wants to be in the _middle_ of one. So…” he shrugs.

******************************************************************************

It makes logical sense, that’s what he keeps thinking. He just doesn’t think that anyone else can see it.

“He attacked a SHIELD Agent,” Director Fury is saying, he sounds harsh and unforgiving, Stiles _definitely_ doesn’t want to _ever_ be on his bad side.

The way that Fury looks at him makes him want to apologize for every bad or possibly bad thought he’s ever had in his entire life.

“I understand that,” Stiles says, he has his hands folded together in his lap and he wishes he’d gone with his first instinct and changed into uniform. Director Fury looks all badass and Clint and Steve are in civilian clothes but still look like they could kick butts and take names; he on the other hand, looks like a college student that wandered into Fury’s office by accident.

“I understand,” he says again. “But we don’t want to make enemies of the packs; they could be an asset for us in the long run.”

As long as Tony doesn’t try to pluck DNA from them and attempt to clone human/werewolf/super-soldier babies. Coulson had forbidden him from doing so but Stiles thinks that Tony’s only going to bow to that dictate for so long before he’ll figure out a way around it.

“He should be locked in a cell and brought up on charges for assault and battery.”

“I don’t think Darren will keep him,” Stiles says, he’s not sure is the thing. But he’s _pretty_ sure that no pack in their right mind is going to want to deal with a werewolf that kidnapped and assaulted an employee of SHIELD.

“My belief is, that if we hand Dreymona over to his pack to be dealt with, Darren will foist him off on somebody _else_ to deal with pretty darn quickly. It might be to Derek, but I think he’ll be more inclined to give him to SHIELD as a sign of good faith.”

“Go on.”

“The thing is, Darren went to a lot of trouble to get our attention,” Stiles says slowly. It’s not the first time he’s voiced his suspicions out loud, they discussed them on the jet after all, but he has no proof. Just his neck and a feeling in his gut that Darren’s decision to out werewolves to SHIELD, even if it was only his pack (and Derek’s by association to Stiles) is a lead up to something bigger. “He could have just directed his wolves to follow, to not intercept or interact with, but he didn’t. I think…”

“You think he wants an alliance with SHIELD, like he would have an alliance with another pack,” Director Fury says.

“Well SHIELD is like a pack if you look at it from the frame of reference of wolves and their packs, you’re our Alpha, you have Beta’s that are your intermediaries, but ultimately they, _we_ , all answer to you.”

Fury stares at him, eye narrowing at him.

“Director Fury?” Steve starts.

“We’ll follow Agent Stilinski’s directives for now,” Fury says, he doesn’t look pleased about it. “I hope you’re right, son.”

So does he.

******************************************************************************

“Should I have corrected him about the Specialist thing?” he asks as they’re walking down the hallway, Clint glances over at him, neatly sidestepping a young woman with a stack of file folders almost taller than her.

“What’s there to correct?”

“I’m not an Agent,” Stiles says, patiently. He’s had this argument before.

Clint narrows his eyes at him.

“You got the promotion to Agent when you took over Markham’s job; do you think SHIELD just lets two Specialists run an entire office by themselves?”

“Well, you know, I’ve got knowledge,” Stiles says.

“And a promotion to go with it.”

Stiles’ mouth twists, “Somebody would have told me about that, right? I mean, there should have been an announcement and maybe a cake with some punch.”

“Do you want a cake? I can probably get the cafeteria to whip something up,” Steve says from the other side of him.

Stiles winces, because he’s seen the cake the cafeteria makes, it tastes like cardboard with sugar on top.

Clint uses his key card to open the door to Stiles’ office.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to work until medical cleared me?” Stiles says, even though he’s itching to get to his computer and check his e-mail and a translation program that he’d had running.

“There you are,” Tony says from where he’s kicked back behind his desk. His feet have disrupted some of his papers and Stiles twitches.

“So I cancelled your flight arrangements, the jet will take you out on December 22nd like you’d originally planned and it’ll bring you back on the morning of January 2nd. I had Pepper move the Christmas party to that night so try to rest up for it. It’ll be a Christmas slash New Years Eve slash Happy New Year party, So there’ll be mistletoe and a Christmas Tree and fireworks and Bruce and I are jerry-rigging a ball to drop at midnight so everyone can lay one on everyone else,” his feet flop down and he pushes away from Stiles’ desk, a piece of paper goes fluttering to the ground and Stiles narrows his eyes at him.

Tony just grins and pushes an envelope at him; he takes it because there’s already one piece of paper on the ground, two means that if Crawford comes in he’ll have a nervous fit. Stiles is a little tired, a lot sore to be dealing with Crawford’s nervous fits _and_ the Avengers at the same time.

“Secret Santa,” Tony says. “I made some notes on things that would be appropriate,” he leers at him and Stiles takes a step back so he’s a little more in line with Clint and Steve.

“Tony behave,” Steve admonishes, though the tone of his voice implies that he thinks it completely a lost cause.

Tony grins.

“Why are you here?” Stiles asks, “because I’m in my office on the Helicarrier and I’m pretty sure that if two Avengers on protection detail is overkill on the land, that three on the Helicarrier is some step that can’t even be comprehended beyond that.”

“Crawford said you guys still needed to do Christmas shopping,” Tony says. “He’s going to meet us down in the bay and we’re going to get what you need, we’ll have it all wrapped up and shipped home for you and one less thing for you to worry about.”

“I can buy my own Christmas presents for my family and friends,” he says, because he can see where this is going and this is going in the direction of him ending up at Tony Stark’s kept man. Though it’s probably called something else since there seems to be an overabundance of money coming his way but no request for sex as payment.

“Yes but Pepper worries that I’m dying if I don’t spend a lot of money on strange and mysterious things every other week or so, there’s been no new toys to spend my money on so I’m going to spend it on you and since I’m not going to make you put my name on the gifts, I can consider it my good deed for the month as well.”

******************************************************************************

Christmas shopping with Tony Stark is a lot like going into a battle, except he doesn’t need to carry an axe and no one is trying to actively kill him.

Tony is their General and the jittery looking sales clerks his soldiers. He barks out commands, sending clerks out after various items on his copy of Stiles’ Christmas list, smirking the entire time. He looks completely in his element.

Stiles ends up parked in a comfy arm chair, Steve standing behind him to make sure he stays there, he has his arms crossed over his chest and is channeling every bodyguard type persona that Stiles can think of.

The unapproachable bodyguard image is ruined every time a sales clerk comes up to Stiles with an item from his list and he smiles in an apologetic manner.

Stiles dutifully checks off items from his list, trying to take quick peeks at price tags as they bring the items to him and make notations so he knows how much he’s in the hole to Tony for.

“Stop that,” Tony scowls at him and a sales clerk that had been headed towards them neatly pivots and heads in the opposite direction. “My money, remember?”

Stiles is doing quick math in his head, Tony _would_ pick one of the most expensive stores in the city to shut down, “at this rate I’m going to owe you two unborn children, or… what’s the going rate on kidneys nowadays, anyway? I’ve got two, I guess I don’t necessarily need both of them.”

“I think all your unborn children are spoken far,” Tony smirks.

“Unborn children, is someone pregnant?” Crawford asks, he’s coming up one of the aisles, ladened down with two bags; Clint has another in his hand and looks annoyed at the fact.

“No, and why is Crawford able to pay for all his stuff and I can’t?” Stiles asks.

“Because people can’t follow simple fucking instructions,” Tony scowls. “When I say that I’m buying everything, I mean, I’m _buying everything_ , Crawford tell me you didn’t hand over a credit card.”

Crawford is holding tight to the straps of his bags like he’s afraid that Tony is going to try and take them away from him, he’s managing to look everywhere but at him (or any of the other Avengers), Stiles wonders how that had worked since Clint had gone off with him looking completely disgruntled at Tony’s command and the nod from Steve.

“Um… I paid cash? I had a Christmas Club,” he says weakly.

“A Christmas Club?” Tony looks at him blankly, like he’s heard the words but isn’t quite sure why they’re in the same sentence and what they have to do with shopping.

“It’s what normal people do,” Stiles offers, “You put in money every week or once a month or so, and then around October or November of the following year you can take the money out and go shopping without having to resort to maxing out all your credit cards.”

Tony is making a face like he wants to say ‘how quaint’ but knows that someone, probably Steve, will hit him for saying it.

“I need his receipts,” Tony snaps his fingers. “Do you want cash back now, or do you want me have a check issued?”

Crawford blinks at him, his mouth opens and closes and he looks at Stiles with a hint of desperation, Stiles grins. So apparently his adoption by Avengers had spread to include Crawford.

He’ll probably have to figure out a way for Crawford to make eye contact with them without turning into a tomato. They’ll work on it after the holidays.

******************************************************************************

The pack goes home leaving his father behind, it is apparently all planned since Tony is allowing his jet to fly them to an airport outside Beacon Hills and Peter and Erica (who apparently had gone back to Beacon Hills prior to Stiles being released from medical’s clingy grasp, he hadn’t even noticed though he had been pretty distracted by the pain and such and he’s going to use that as an excuse if Peter makes mention of it) are going to meet them.

There is a plan for the Avengers to accompany Stiles out to Beacon Hills and transfer his custody to the pack for the duration of his Christmas vacation, then at least one of them will return on January 2nd to take him back to the city.

He doesn’t make jokes about custody arrangements or overkill, even though he really wants to. Because Derek is looking particularly murderous about not being able to take Stiles back to Beacon Hills with the pack and Steve is looking _not happy_ about Stiles’ protection or lack thereof while he’s in Beacon Hills.

“The pack is sufficient protection,” Stiles says. He doesn’t say ‘look they haven’t allowed me to be seriously injured, maimed or otherwise killed yet’ but that’s only because he’s pretty sure that the Avengers would assign him a bodyguard for the duration of his vacation and he can’t trust that Steve or Director Fury won’t develop a sense of humor out of the blue and assign either Tony or Natasha to that detail.

And it would be one of those two, he’s sure. Mostly because he wouldn’t mind Clint being there, he could give him his Christmas present without staring eyes and Tony demanding they capture some supernatural creature so Clint can try them out and Tony can see how they work.

And he wouldn’t mind Steve, because Steve and his dad get along, though he thinks that Steve would be stricter than his father and he’d probably have a curfew, so maybe not Steve.

Bruce isn’t really an option, and as much as Stiles likes the guy even though he’s only really met and interacted with him a handful of times, he would probably shoot it down if it were broached.

Because the Hulk in Beacon Hills? He doesn’t think the town would be standing at the end, especially if the normal happens.

******************************************************************************

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: So updates will be on Friday for the foreseeable future.
> 
> Notes:
> 
> 1\. For those of you waiting for Thor, Loki & the Asgardians to make an appearance. At the very least Thor and Loki will show up.
> 
> 2\. Is anybody good with artwork? Before the end of the story (we've got some time, don't worry :D) I'd like to have a cover for this. I'm going to try and muddle something together at some point but if there's anyone out there with actual talent that wouldn't mind doing one up I'd be willing to pay in ficlets (in this universe or any other universe that I've already established for other fandoms).


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christmas!

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 12/?**

Crawford looks beyond relieved and more than a little agitated when Stiles shows up in the morning, he thinks that’s mostly because of the check that he’s waving around in his hand.

“And what am I supposed to do with this?” he’s saying, actually he’s more _screeching_ it. It would be amusing if Stiles hadn’t already started out the morning with a mild headache which his father had only exacerbated by arguing with him about his morning cup of coffee.

He’s allowed one cup, he’d asked upon his discharge from medical and his doctor had said that as long as it was one cup and one cup only it would be fine.

“It’s a check,” Stiles says, once he manages to corral Crawford’s flailing limbs. “You cash it.”

“It’s a check from Tony Stark,” Crawford says in a low voice that Stiles knows from past experience indicates that he’s about 30 seconds away from a panic attack, it’s why they have the cushions and candles and a Corner of Serenity set up in, well a corner of their office, “for more than I actually spent on all my Christmas presents _this_ year, _last_ year _and_ the year before. _I can’t take this_.”

Stiles frowns at him, “why not?”

Crawford just sputters at him and Stiles takes that as an indication that whatever is going on in Crawford’s head is calming down (otherwise he’d still be screeching) and goes over to his desk. He starts his computer up, sets his phone down so he can sync it up.

“Do I have anything of note this morning?” he asks, “also did you let Tony near my computer?”

Crawford just blinks at him, still coming down from his Tony Stark induced break.

“Why?” he asks, there’s still a high pitched tone to his voice, a paper fluttering to the ground or an Avenger coming through the door could be just enough to set him off again.

“No reason,” Stiles shakes his head, Crawford narrows his eyes at him and rounds his desk.

“I should probably not sync my phone with my computer just in case, right?”

On his computer waving at them and making crude hand gestures is a digital representation of Tony Stark. It’s probably a good thing he keeps the volume off on his computer.

******************************************************************************

He’s working on the other computer, the one not plugged into any network and therefore not contaminated with Tony’s digital presence. He’d needed to do some updates on the program anyway, and he wanted to get them done so he could save it to disc for Danny and Lydia.

“It’s like Max Headroom,” Crawford snaps his fingers from his own desk where his computer is thankfully ‘Tony’ free.

“What?”

“Max Headroom, that old show with the AI in the computer show, my mom liked it,” Crawford says defensively even though Stiles didn’t say a word.

Stiles glances over at his computer where ‘Tony’ is now sporting black sunglasses and bobbing his head, he’s somehow figured out the volume is off and apparently can’t turn it on himself so he (it) has resorted to thought bubbles.

 _(But cooler, much, much cooler)_ , flashes on the screen and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“You’ve got a 10:30 with Agent Coulson,” Crawford reminds him.

Stiles glances down at his watch, 10:20 now, he can probably make it there in 10 minutes.

He pushes away from the desk, stretches and then grabs his notebook and a binder off his desk. He reaches for his phone and watches as ‘Tony’ smirks at him.

“Yeah, I’m not going to take my phone with me so why don’t you meet me at noon and we’ll go to lunch from there.”

 _(Spoilsport._ )

******************************************************************************

Steve is coming out of Agent Coulson’s office, his father right behind him when Stiles gets there.

“Um,” he starts because he’d thought his father was going to do some sightseeing in the city. That’s what he’d been told that morning in between getting yelled at for drinking coffee and having bacon that he wouldn’t let his father fry up in his freezer of refrigerator that is not his own.

“I thought your dad might be bored,” Steve says.

“He was going to do some sightseeing,” Stiles says. “And I offered to take vacation.”

“You’re taking vacation to come home,” his father reminds him, “no sense using it up here, besides I’m an adult I can manage to entertain myself for eight hours.”

“But you’re here instead?”

“When Captain America…”

“Call me Steve.”

“…shows up your doorstep and offers a tour of the Helicarrier, well,” his dad shrugs his ‘what are you going to do’ shrug.

Stiles blinks at him and looks over at Steve.

“Agent Coulson wanted to have a few words with him prior to the tour,” Steve says.

“And have me sign a non-disclosure agreement and confiscate my cell phone and any video recording devices I might have had on me. I’ll get the phone back, right?”

“Just don’t let Tony near it,” Steve warns.

“Or he’ll violate it and you’ll end up taking an AI home with you.”

******************************************************************************

Agent Coulson is sitting behind his desk, hands crossed in front of him, ignoring his laptop. It’s so completely abnormal that he knows that if he were to take his life in his own hands and go around the other side of the desk that he would see ‘Tony’ doing something inappropriate for child audiences.

“Tony violated your computer, didn’t he?”

“I already have a call into IT,” Coulson says, his eyes glance over at the screen and narrow at whatever he finds there.

“It seems to be impervious, every time IT thought they had it removed from mine he’d pop back up and flip them off,” Stiles says. “I guess I should be glad that it hasn’t infected Crawford’s yet, he might never come back into our office.”

******************************************************************************

Tony comes for them personally the morning of the 22nd, all smiles and dark circles under his eyes.

“Are you not sleeping?” Stiles asks, his bags are packed, two of them going with him to Beacon Hills the rest ready to be transported through some mysterious means back to his room on the Helicarrier.

“I was working on something,” Tony says defensively. “Pepper already yelled at me so I’ve hit my daily quota, try again tomorrow.”

“I figured the whole group of you would traipse up here to pick us up,” his dad says.

“Well they would have, but Barton got some mysterious phone call at 6 this morning so he was already gone and Steve sucks at rock paper scissors so you just get me,” he holds out his arms and grins maniacally at them.

So no sleep and possibly more than his daily allotment of caffeine.

The flight is a couple hours; maybe he can convince both his dad _and_ Tony to take naps. Or maybe he can convince his dad to take a nap and Tony to take his artificial counterpart off his computer.

Because his computer is still infected with ‘Tony’ (IT has all but given up, they make token efforts every morning but mostly just tell him he needs a new computer that Tony Stark doesn’t have access to), he doesn’t mind so much, he at least allows Stiles to check his e-mail and run his searches so long as Stiles turns the volume on and lets him blather on about whatever strikes his fancy for 10 minutes in the morning and 30 right before they leave for the day.

“Hey maybe when I come back my computer won’t have to have time outs anymore when it breaks out the potty mouth language.”

******************************************************************************

By mysterious phone call apparently Clint had been sent out on assignment. Stiles realizes this when they get to the jet and the pilot is not somebody that he recognizes and Clint is nowhere to be seen.

Everyone else is there, save for Dr. Banner.

“He doesn’t really like flying on the jet,” Steve says apologetically, like Stiles is going to take offense that Bruce doesn’t want to accompany him and the rest of his babysitters to Beacon Hills for the drop off. Stiles is fine with Bruce not coming, because that means Bruce not getting agitated for some reason on the plane, the Hulk making an appearance and the remainder of them plummeting to their deaths when he punches a hole in the side of the jet.

“It’s all fine,” Stiles says. He’d be more inclined to be upset about Clint not being there because he’s _always_ there and it seems kind of weird for him to all of a sudden _not_ be.

******************************************************************************

Derek and Scott are the only ones waiting for the jet when it finally comes to a stop and the steps come down.

“That way we only had to bring one car,” Scott says as he hugs Stiles hard enough to make it kind of difficult to breathe for a couple of seconds.

“Dude, I think you broke ribs,” Stiles wheezes when Scott releases him, Scott just grins at him, draping an arm over his shoulder.

“Stiles,” Derek inclines his head at him.

“Derek,” Stiles nods back. “What, I don’t get a crushing bear hug?”

Derek raises an eyebrow at him and Stiles grins.

“I don’t want your protection detail to think I’m assaulting you,” he says, head jerking in the direction of the jet. Steve is standing there, arms crossed over his chest looking as All-American as apple pie even in jeans and a sweatshirt.

He waves and Steve relaxes, waving back. They don’t hang around waiting for the jet to leave because Scott drags Stiles towards the car and Derek is talking to his dad in quiet voices as they walk ahead of them.

He crosses his fingers and hopes for non-supernatural type activities for his Christmas vacation. He’s not holding his breath, but he thinks he’s due for a break so maybe…?

******************************************************************************

They spend a day and a half in their own house, its radio silence from the Avengers which was expected but still makes something twinge in the vicinity of his heart. And a revolving door of the pack coming and going.

Scott is camped out in their living room, watching TV and drinking all the soda that Stiles found in the cupboard and glared at his father about.

His father is decidedly unrepentant and Stiles is going to have to talk to the cashiers at the grocery stores and the mini mart again before he leaves.

“The house is yours, we don’t normally search it,” Scott says and he offers him the bag of chips. There are crumbs left in the bottom and Stiles makes a face and waves it off. “I mean we can, especially now that your dad knows, but it was the one thing that you always did when you came back, so…”

“It’s fine,” Stiles says.

His phone vibrates in his hand and he grins when he sees the name flash across the screen.

“Hey, I thought you were on an assignment?”

“I am,” he hears, there’s something that sounds like gunfire in the background and Stiles frowns, next to him Scott isn’t even _pretending_ to not be listening in. “It’s just wrapping up now, but I wanted to call and wish you a Merry Christmas and I won’t be able to tomorrow.”

“I would have taken a day after Christmas phone call if it meant that I didn’t need to hear gunfire, and is that a helicopter or something?”

“Good ear,” Clint’s voice sounds kind of far away. “That’s my ride, so Merry Christmas and I’ll call you after I debrief.”

Stiles goes to say ‘you don’t have to do that’ and ‘I think you just broke three regulations by calling me from whatever war zone you’re in’ but there’s nobody there to say it to so he hangs up instead.

“That man has a crush on you,” Scott says, he’s licking his fingers and dragging them along the bottom of the chip bag, wagging his eyebrows at him. He looks ridiculous.

“No he doesn’t,” Stiles says. “And I think dad has another bag of those hidden in the pantry behind the bottles of juice if you’re done killing that one.”

******************************************************************************

The plan is to put the tree up and decorate it on Christmas Eve at Hale House.

“It’s not falling apart anymore, right?” Stiles asks. It’s been a while since he’s had to hang out there for any length of time, but the last time the humans had been sequestered there they’d spent most of the time kind of tapping their feet out in front of them hoping to not find loose floorboards they would then subsequently fall through.

“Derek and Peter have got it mostly done, the only thing really left to do is the expansion but everyone’s got their own room for when we have pack sleepovers.”

“You mean there’s no forced pack cuddle times?”

“Only on Sundays,” Scott grins.

They’re stuffed into Stiles’ jeep with presents piled high, pressing into the back of their seats and going clear back to the rear window; they have absolutely no visibility out the back window. They’re fucked if they get pulled over.

There’s mistletoe hanging by the front door that Stiles manages to avoid by following in Scott’s footsteps.

“Spoilsport,” Lydia smirks at him from just inside the doorway, then presses a kiss to his and Scott’s cheeks while Jackson growls from across the room.

“If anyone wants to open presents tomorrow I need help unloading Stiles’ car,” Scott says and the pack moves as one to go help, Jackson included. Stiles doesn’t go with them because Lydia loops her arm through his and tugs him over to what seems to be the snack table.

“I could have brought them in,” Stiles says.

“Let the wolves do it,” Danny says. “It won’t take them as long and possibly nothing will be broken on Christmas morning.”

“I’ll have you know that I outgrew the klutz thing in like 9th grade,” Stiles mutters.

“And yet still managed to fall down a perfectly clear flight of stairs in twelfth,” Stiles narrows his eyes at him and Danny smirks back.

“Falls occurring while being chased by werewolves, ghosts and that gremlin goblin thing don’t count as klutziness.”

“Not to interrupt this absolutely fascinating discussion as to whether or not you’re still a klutz, news flash, _you are_. Jackson is a sucker for presents, what did you get him so I can brace him for crap if needed,” Lydia says.

“What if I didn’t get him anything?” Stiles asks as he takes a small plate and starts piling it high, Lydia raises an eyebrow at him.

“Okay I got him something, the Christmas list idea came in handy because otherwise he would have gotten either handkerchiefs or chocolate which are my default when I don’t know what to get somebody.”

“Danny’s idea,” Lydia tilts her head in Danny’s direction and Danny smiles softly at her.

Stiles blinks at them and stuffs a faux peanut butter ball in his mouth and doesn’t say anything because talking with his mouth full is rude and he really doesn’t have anything to say because apparently Scott dropped the ball on notifying him about developments in that arena.

******************************************************************************

Scott’s a liar that lies, they _do_ have pack cuddle time; everyone curled up together in what he guesses is the family room. There’s thick blankets on the floor and a low fire going. Someone has left the TV on and someone else has left music playing.

It’s calm and peaceful, at 12:01 am his phone vibrates against his hip six times in quick succession with Merry Christmas texts from Tony, Steve, Bruce, Natasha, Agent Coulson and an unknown number that he’s assuming is probably Clint because nobody else has his number save for the Avengers and the people surrounding him.

******************************************************************************

Derek is thrilled with his Keurig, his face doesn’t change expressions but Stiles can tell by how he’s a little less frowny when he tears the paper and realizes what it is. Danny and Lydia had gone in together on about $200 worth of assorted coffees.

“I call first cup,” Stiles says.

“Only if you set it up,” Derek says.

“Deal,” Stiles makes gimme motions with his hands, Derek hands it over gently like it’ll explode if not treated with care and respect. It’ll have a name by the end of the day; Stiles would be willing to put money on that.

Lydia follows him into the kitchen, evidently to make sure she gets the second one.

“You and Danny went in halvesies on a Christmas present, was there a price limit that I should have known about?”

“You work for SHIELD and are buddy buddy with Tony Stark, are you telling me you can’t afford it?” Lydia asks as she watches him set up the coffee maker.

“I’m not buddies with Tony Stark,” Stiles says, he’s pulling tape and foam off the Keurig, it was the most advanced one that they had, he’s pretty sure it could raise any cubs the pack decides to have.

Lydia pshaws at him and he frowns over at her.

“I’m not, I’m like a _novelty_ or something, you know because of the werewolves and all that stuff. Eventually they’ll get bored or Tony’ll write a program that does what I do and I’ll be discarded to the back of the toy closet.”

Lydia stares at him with her ‘you are the stupidest person alive’ eyes. It’s unnerving.

“They’re your friends and can I be there when you tell them you think that? I think the blow up will be interesting to say the least.”

“If Tony doesn’t have us bugged or satellites pointed in this direction I’d be shocked.”

Lydia mutters something under her breath and Stiles looks over at her.

“Don’t mind me, I just figured with working for SHIELD and the Avengers that your self-esteem would be at an all-time high but I can see that Peter and I should have gone in halvesies on therapy after all.”

“Why are you even thinking about going in on presents with Peter? Is there something going on I should know about?”

“Not the point,” Lydia states. “Your archer called you from on assignment, don’t try and deny it, Scott told me; you got texts this morning from every single one of them to wish you a Merry Christmas. That doesn’t make you a toy, it makes you a friend.”

Presents are still being unwrapped in the living room and he gets tackle hugged from behind by Allison breaking his eye contact with Lydia, when he looks back over she’s studying her fingernails in a manner that he knows from past experience means that she’s done discussing this.

For now anyway.

“Best Christmas present ever,” she squeals, then whispers. “I won’t tell Scott if you won’t.”

Lydia laughs.

“Clint said he put a list of what each of the arrows does and how to set them up, but he couldn’t give you a bow or quiver because SHIELD holds the patents for them so we’re on our own for making them work,” Stiles says.

“If SHIELD can figure it out I think we can figure it out too,” Lydia says, she’s already looking at the list that Allison had in her hand, Allison is cooing over the box.

He grins to himself and goes back to setting the coffee maker up. Allison’s present was partially his way of saying thank you for the help she’s giving him for getting Clint’s Christmas present ready and a thank you from Clint because apparently she’d come to talk to him when he’d been missing.

And if he chooses to not look too closely as to why of all of the presents he’s had to choose this year that Clint’s was the most important that’s his own business.

******************************************************************************

Crawford calls on the morning of the 31st, to be honest Stiles had been expecting him to call sooner to at least wish him a Merry Christmas or even belated, but there’d been nothing. It had sent the back of his neck twinging but the most supernatural thing in Crawford’s life, from what Stiles can tell, is him.

So he should be having a nice, safe, free of all the stuff they’ve been reading about, Christmas.

“Hey, how’s your Christmas going?” Stiles asks.

Crawford is silent on the other end for long seconds, long enough that Stiles goes still and as such gains the attention of everyone else in the room.

“Crawford?”

“On your way back to the city can you pick me up?” Crawford asks finally, his voice is soft, like he doesn’t want to be heard and there’s something… thick in it. He doesn’t _sound_ right and the second he gets off the phone he’s calling Tony to have him find out where Crawford is.

“I thought you had a round trip ticket?” Stiles asks. “Is something wrong? I can call Tony and have someone come get you right now.”

“No!” Crawford says, his voice breaks and Stiles bites his lips and turns his back on the pack, crossing one arm over his chest.

“Crawford tell me what’s going on, right now, or you find whichever one of the Avengers answers their phone first on your doorstep.”

Crawford clears his throat, “It was…it was just a bad trip home, I… I should have stayed in the city, worked through it, I could have started going through the filing cabinets that are going to explode one of these days, no matter what you say.”

“They’ve got locks on them, they’re fine.”

“I’m okay, I’m staying at a hotel in Chicago, and I don’t, I left my bag at my parents and my tickets in it and I can’t go back, I _can’t_ ,” Crawford’s voice breaks again and Stiles has never heard him talk about his family, but Crawford had always struck him as kind of private so he’d left it alone.

“It’s okay, you’ve got your license and your SHIELD ID’s right?” Crawford makes a noise that sounds like an affirmative. “I’ll call you when the jet picks me up and you’ll just meet me at the strip, okay?”

“Okay,” Crawford says. “I _am_ okay, you know.”

“I don’t believe you, dude. But you can try and convince me some more when I see you in a couple of days.”

******************************************************************************

Stiles gets passed around like a party favor come midnight, kisses from everyone and everyone kissing everyone else. It’s like a big old orgy of kissing though he could have done without Peter trying to slip him some tongue.

He _does_ manage to go to bed by himself though, he’s drunk enough that he’s not worrying about Crawford, but he’s not sober enough to not be thinking about people that he shouldn’t be thinking about while jerking off.

He has half a brain cell to spare to be thankful that of all the powers and abilities the Avengers have, telepathy doesn’t rank among any of them; though doing this in a houseful of wolves is going to get him mocked in the morning.

So if he whispers a name when he comes it’s between him, his hand and his dick.

And any of the werewolves that still happen to be awake.

******************************************************************************

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for the fantastic feedback, it's always very greatly appreciated and makes writing go that much faster.


	13. Chapter 13

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 13/?**

The pack accompanies him to the strip, a line of cars and he’s sad about leaving but excited about getting back to work.

“So no more silent treatment,” Derek says suddenly.

“What?”

“No more silent treatment, phone calls once a week,” he says. “Maybe on Sundays, we can put you on speaker and you can tell us about your week.”

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, he’ll call them after he calls his dad, it’ll be phone home Sunday, maybe he can do an ET impression.

******************************************************************************

Natasha is waiting at the base of the stairs, hands dangling at her sides and the pack surrounds him in one big hug, if he runs into any wolves there’s going to be no mistaking the fact that he’s a member of a pack.

His dad hugs him last, rubbing his hand over his head.

“Be good,” his dad says. “No more visits from SHIELD agents to tell me you’ve been kidnapped.”

“Don’t front dad,” Stiles mutters into his shoulder. “You totally liked hanging out with Captain America.”

“Steve,” his dad grins when Stiles pulls back, Stiles grins back. “I’d rather do it without worrying about my son next time.”

“I make no promises,” Stiles says, because he works for SHIELD, he thinks he’ll break that promise, at least the worrying part, the next time there’s some world-wide catastrophe. “I’ll call you when we get there,” he starts backing away, bag in hand now, backpack over his shoulder.

“Natasha,” he calls, waving a little wave, her lips twitch at him. “Are you my ride? Do I need to tell you that we have to swing by Chicago and pick up Crawford? Because, well, we need to swing by Chicago and pick up Crawford.”

“Tony already told me,” Natasha says, she steps back and lets him walk up the stairs into the jet first, he waves when he gets to the doorway and the pack and his dad wave back, Natasha presses a hand to his back and indicates he should go inside.

“So the phones are bugged then? I was right? Go me,” Stiles says, handing off his luggage to the woman in the snazzy uniform who looks like she wants them.

“Crawford called Agent Coulson to let him know that you’d agreed to pick him up on your way through, he wanted to make sure it was okay.”

“It’s okay, right? Because it kind of sounded like family drama happened and…” Stiles doesn’t go any further, it’s Crawford’s personal business and Stiles isn’t going to interfere unless Crawford gives him the go ahead.

“If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be stopping. We’re stopping to pick him up, so ergo, it must be alright.”

******************************************************************************

Natasha is frowning, eyes narrowed and kind of angry when she comes back on board. She’d looked fine when she got off the plane to go retrieve Crawford from where he was waiting; now she looks like she wants to kill someone.

“What…?” Stiles starts coming to his feet and then Crawford follows her in, kind of meekly, shoulders hunched, he looks pale and drawn and…

“That’s a black eye, _you have a black eye_.”

“Wow, observant,” Crawford mumbles, he rubs the hand not in the cast over his face, like he’s going to cover the black eye with his hand and Stiles will forget that it’s there.

“Your other black eyes were all gone when you left for vacation, why do you have another one now? Natasha?”

“He won’t say,” Natasha says.

“You said you were fine, this is not fine,” Stiles waves his hands.

“I just, can we not talk about it,” Crawford says, “I’ll talk about it later, just not right now, please?”

Stiles makes a noise of frustration and Crawford goes to a seat, buckling in. Stiles looks at where Natasha is silently fuming in that way where outwardly someone who doesn’t know her wouldn’t be able to tell that she’s plotting fifteen ways to kill someone and make it look like an accident.

******************************************************************************

He’s not in a party mood, not after leaving Crawford back on the Helicarrier with an icepack and ten refusals to his invitations to come with.

“I’m not feeling very festive,” he says when Tony opens the door.

“We’ll solve that with copious amounts of alcohol, music, games, presents and maybe if you’ve been a _really_ good boy _maybe_ some kissing later on.”

“Won’t Pepper get jealous?”

“Not as much as…”

“Tony, are you going to let him in?” Pepper interrupts, poking him in the side. She gives him a stern look, it’s all in the eyes he thinks and Tony settles down with a smirk and a knowing expression.

“And don’t worry about the Crawford thing,” Tony says settling an arm over his shoulders and walking him away from the door. “I’ve got people on it.”

“No one’s going to die, right? Because I kind of got the impression it was maybe a family thing and I’d really like Crawford to still want to work with me when it’s all done,” Stiles says. He would stop dead at the sight of the room but Tony’s still moving, tugging him along with him.

The room looks like someone tossed all the decorations available for Christmas, New Year, Hanukkah and Baby’s First Birthday into a hat and then put up whatever they pulled _out_ of the hat.

“Did you guys hire a decorator or do it yourself?” Stiles asks, he hopes his voice doesn’t sound as horrified as he thinks it does.

He doesn’t want to offend anyone, 3/4 of the room could kill him with their bare hands, but he’s _seen_ paparazzi pictures of all kinds of parties that Tony’s been involved with and _none_ of them looked like this.

There’d been more dignity, or at least as much dignity as parties that very obviously had more male and female strippers than actual guests could manage.

“He made two decorators cry, it was easier to just let him do it himself,” Pepper says from his right.

“It’s really…” Stiles can’t finish, he doesn’t think the words are available in the English language to convey what imagery the room evokes.

“You get desensitized to it very quickly,” Pepper says. “Drinks help.”

******************************************************************************

“I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s mistletoe right above you,” Steve says in a very low voice, they’re shuffling along the buffet of food, the buffet is just as schizophrenic as the room, it has no idea what holiday it’s celebrating and he’s pretty sure he saw Halloween candy on the table where the plates were.

Stiles casts his eyes upward and there it is, just hanging there, “Um.”

Steve’s got two red spots on his cheeks and he leans down and pecks him on the cheek quickly.

“Boo Cap,” Tony catcalls. “That’s in no way a kiss. Where’s the lip on lip action? Where’s the tongue?”

“Where’s my gun?” Steve mutters.

******************************************************************************

“I think this is a birthday game,” Stiles says to Clint as he watches Pepper place a blindfold over Natasha’s eyes. “In fact, I _know_ this is a birthday game, I played it at like my tenth birthday party.”

Pepper spins her around and then directs her _away_ from the wall with an evil little grin, Natasha stops, spins on her heel and walks directly to the donkey taped to the wall, she places her tail directly over top of the one that Clint had already put up.

She pulls the blindfold off and smirks.

“Okay, new rule, next game, the assassins don’t get to participate,” Tony says, arms crossed over his chest.

“You’re just mad because your tail is on the other wall,” Clint laughs, Stiles doesn’t know how much he’s had to drink, the glasses seem to refill themselves every five minutes or so but Clint is all loose and heavy against his side and Stiles giggled for ten minutes straight after finding himself planting his tail right next to Tony’s on the wall.

That’s about when he switched back over to soda, he doesn’t think Tony’s noticed yet and his plants might end up with alcohol poisoning by morning at the rate that Agent Coulson is pouring _his_ into the fern by the bar.

“No, I just don’t want to get knifed or shot in the ass by an arrow when you and Tasha there try to take down the Piñata.”

******************************************************************************

“If spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven are the next games up I’m locking myself in the bathroom,” Stiles mutters to Agent Coulson.

“You won’t be alone in there; I think Pepper’s already claimed it as her hiding spot of choice.”

******************************************************************************

The birthday games end, thankfully and there’s a radio playing soft music. Tony’s rigged up something that’s counting down to the mock midnight and he’d said something about fireworks which if Stiles knows Tony at all by now, he knows are going to be loud and flashy and would probably land someone without Stark as a last name in jail.

Clint is leaning against the wall next to him close enough that their shoulders are pressed together, there’s a whole large expanse of wall and Stiles would ask why he’s been glued to his side but the little tiny part of him that wants to lick the muscles in his arms and jerks off thinking about him says that’s a bad idea.

Pepper and Tony are swaying together; Steve dancing near them with Natasha. The difference between the two couples is, well only one pair of them is a couple and you could fit a whole person in the space between Steve and Natasha’s bodies.

Bruce has his legs drawn up under him in what looks to be a comfiest armchair ever and may or may not be sleeping.

On the other side of the bar Coulson is on the phone, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to be expected to perform medical miracles and force the Avengers to sober up anytime soon.

“It kind of reminds me of my prom,” Stiles says. He’d ostensibly gone with a girl from his chem class, she’d spent the whole time dancing with some muscle-bound jerk from the football team and he’d spent the whole dance leaning against the wall next to Isaac watching everyone else.

“Do you want to dance? We should dance,” Clint says as he grabs his hand and swings him away from the wall.

“Um,” he says as Clint kind of pulls him into place, he has a half-second of absolute terror while he tries to figure out where to put his hands. He danced with Danny once when they’d been out and about pretending to be normal people; but that had been fast dancing with Jackson standing nearby arms crossed over his chest looking sullen and annoyed in equal measures.

“I didn’t have a prom, but the ones that I see on TV either end in teen pregnancy or with a bloody massacre which way did yours go?” Clint asks, Stiles blinks at him.

“There are just normal ones too, you know, where the kids stand around, dance and drink punch and nobody gets Teen Mom’d up or mauled by demons from the ninth dimension or pulls a Carrie.”

Clint makes a face that says he finds the thought of that completely boring.

“We could have just played with the Wii or something and it would have been like 100% less terrifying than some of the parties I’ve been to,” Stiles says thoughtfully.

He’d stopped going to parties in high school because there always seemed to be a werewolf attack either going on _right then_ or one about to start imminently or fucking _fairies_ poisoning the local water supply with some dust that made people go crazy and strip all their clothes off in the street and sing musical numbers.

There are some things that he would give just about anything to not be able to remember (where’s a good bout of amnesia when you need one?) his father standing over his moms grave singing the open lyrics for ‘My Heart Will Go On’ and trying to unknot his tie is one of them.

“You’re good at this,” Stiles says, for lack of anything better to say.

“Undercover op, Coulson made me learn, if I’d known about the perks I probably would have been more receptive,” Clint smirks at him and Stiles grins back helplessly.

“Five, four,” the countdown is going on around them, Steve is already blowing on one of the noise makers probably so his mouth is occupied and Tony won’t try and lay one on him.

When the count hits one, Clint leans forward and Stiles doesn’t back up and wave his arms and shout ‘personal bubble, personal bubble,’ he just closes his eyes and lets Clint brush their lips together.

As kisses go it’s chaste and innocent and when Clint pulls back there’s a little voice in his head that goes ‘ah-ha’ when he licks his lips and Clint’s eyes go dark and follow the motion. The voice sounds like Lydia, it’s kind of disconcerting to have the voice of his first crush in his head urging him to lean forward and lay a _real_ kiss on this one.

It’s a moot point because Natasha whirls Clint away to plant a kiss on him, and Tony’s got an arm over his shoulder pressing a kiss to his temple.

It’s not, well it’s not an orgy of kissing like actual New Years in Beacon Hills but no one tries to slip him tongue and it doesn’t escape his notice that the only one who actually kisses him on the lips is Clint.

******************************************************************************

He doesn’t realize that the mock New Years kiss was going to be an actual first kiss until Clint corners him outside Tony’s bathroom.

“Clint?” he starts because he has got him pressed all up against a wall and he’s just staring at him. It’s disconcerting and unnerving as hell, he has a feeling that if he squirmed just a bit that Clint would let him go and he’d probably never see him again.

“Just,” Clint mumbles, his eyes are dark and when he leans forward, slowly, telegraphing all his moves so Stiles can turn his head or hit him if he wants to, well Stiles leans forward enough that he can press their lips together this time.

His lips are warm, and his tongue presses against the seam of Stiles’ lips and it’s all gentle and quiet and kind of tentative. Like Clint still isn’t sure of his welcome even though he has his tongue in his mouth and Stiles is pressing his hands against his hips to keep him from going anywhere.

“First date rules,” he hears from the side and his groan of annoyance is echoed by Clint, Clint is the one who pulls back. Dragging his lips across Stiles’ cheek, when he turns his head their temples are pressed together and Stiles doesn’t want to know the picture they present to Tony.

They’re still clothed.

“What the hell are first date rules, Stark?” Clint asks, there’s an annoyed tone to this voice that says that if Clint had a weapon Tony might not still be among the living.

“I’m glad you asked, Barton,” Tony says brightly. “First date rules means that I ignore the kiss at New Years because, well New Years. But it also means that you get one more kiss, and that one better be when you drop Stiles off at his room for the night.”

Tony evidently doesn’t like whatever he sees on Clint’s face, Stiles would move so he could see the expression himself but he’s pressed up against the wall and Clint’s pressed up against him and he’s comfortable where he is, thank you.

“I’ll be revoking your access to this floor once you leave, at least for the night, and that includes the air ducts; don’t think I don’t know how you get into the kitchen to steal all the cookies without anyone seeing.”

******************************************************************************


	14. Chapter 14

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 14/?**

Stiles hitches a ride to the Helicarrier with Agent Coulson the next morning. He tries not to look like he spent about three minutes; that were then interrupted by Tony Stark, making out with Clint against the wall by the bathroom.

He wonders at what point he gets to make out with Clint, if Clint chooses to continue wanting to make out with him; without any interruptions of the Avengers kind.

“Fourth date,” Coulson says, Stiles just looks at him and starts humming _God Bless America_ mentally just in case Coulson spontaneously developed psychic powers overnight. Coulson just smiles enigmatically back at him.

“I have a dad you know,” Stiles says reminds him, because he thinks that sometimes they forget. “And also I’m over eighteen.”

“And he’s not here at the moment and you’re never too old for people to want to look out for your best interests.”

******************************************************************************

“I came out to my dad,” Crawford says. Stiles had been about to shove a forkful of food in his mouth and he decides to set it down so as to not choke to death.

“Okay,” he says slowly. He’d figured that when and if Crawford decided to talk about what happened when he went home it would be somewhere private, probably with a bit of help from some alcohol. Not in the middle of the cafeteria at dinner.

“It didn’t go well, obviously,” Crawford says, his lips twist into an unhappy expression. “I mean it’s not like I ever _hid_ the fact that I had boyfriends in high school.”

“Parents sometimes see the things they want to see, the things they expect to see.”

“I took a boy to my prom,” Crawford says. “I posed for pictures with him in front of my parents and his parents, I never hid, I just never said the words until…” he rubs at his face. The bruise is mostly faded now, just some yellowing remaining around his eye. It still makes Stiles irrationally angry to see it.

His dad had told him once that he wasn’t gay, granted at the time Stiles hadn’t really meant anything by it, he’d been in love with Lydia for almost his entire life and had never entertained the idea that maybe there might be someone else in the world for him.

When he finally, _actually_ came out… when he finally told his dad that if he wasn’t _gay_ he was _definitely_ bi and he’d _meant_ it, well other than the mild freak out about not getting grandkids after all… his dad had been nothing but supportive.

“It gets better,” Stiles says softly. He thinks his father has realized that adoption is still possible, he’ll maybe, eventually end up with grandkids to bounce on his knee and tell embarrassing stories about their father to. That might even have Stiles’ DNA, there’s no telling at this point.

Crawford makes a face, like he doesn’t believe him but he’s willing to let Stiles lie to him for a little while regardless.

“It _does_ get better, and I’d introduce you to guys, I know a couple, but they’re all back in Beacon Hills and I’m pretty sure that Danny is mostly spoken for and Derek would throw the hissy fit to end all hissy fits if I made mention of introducing Isaac to anyone not living within a 50 mile radius.”

“I have a boyfriend,” Crawford says, he stops for a moment and amends with, “or at least I have a male companion that I periodically have sex with and sometimes actually go out in public with.”

“You deserve an _actual_ boyfriend and not boy who is a friend who is also a friend with benefits.”

“Yeah, well I work for SHIELD and being stationed on the Helicarrier doesn’t make it easy to have relationship unless the other party also works for SHIELD and is stationed on the Helicarrier.”

“So we find you someone here,” Stiles says decisively.

“I also like my spine and head in the exact configuration they’re in now and would prefer to not have any more facial bruising or broken bones. Thanks anyway.”

******************************************************************************

The Avengers leave on assignment and come back with Thor (and Loki) in tow.

Stiles finds this out when a meeting request hits his e-mail and ‘Tony’ auto accepts it on his behalf.

Thor is, well he’s got biceps and hair and if he wasn’t stupidly besotted with Clint and if the first words out Thor’s mouth weren’t about his beloved Jane…

Well he still wouldn’t have a chance, but that’s what fantasies are for, right?

“This is Agent Stilinski,” Coulson says when he enters the room, it’s a meeting room that he’s never been in before and the Avengers are all there, including Thor with Director Fury standing at the head of the table.

There’s an empty chair next to Clint that he assumes is meant for him and he kind of slides into to it and tries to make himself invisible. He’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to be here.

“The sphere is one of four items that we have determined is missing,” Thor is saying when Stiles forces himself to stop being in awe of the fact that he’s in the room with the _actual_ god of thunder and listen.

“What does the sphere do, is this another item like the Tesseract? A power source or doorway?” Director Fury asks.

“Nothing so powerful, it tells the future of whoever gazes upon it.”

“Like a wizard’s ball,” Stiles says, the room as a whole swings its gaze to him. That many eyes are almost oppressive in their weight. He still manages to keep his spine straight and not slouch down in his seat to hide under the table.

“Wizards ball, I am unfamiliar with this concept,” Thor says. He’s got very blue eyes that are completely focused on Stiles at the moment. Clint nudges him with his foot under the table.

“Um, wizards balls, fortune tellers balls…”

“They’re fake,” Clint says. “I knew enough fortune tellers when I was kid that I can pretty much guarantee that.”

“Well 99% of them are I’m sure, but there’s a few mentions in some of the stuff that Crawford and I have been going through that are the real deal. Whether it’s the ball itself or the person wielding it I can’t tell you that,” Stiles shrugs.

“This would be a very specific sphere,” Thor says. “It would not be easily hidden; it would not _allow_ itself to be hidden.”

“Okay, so we’re looking for someone who can suddenly tell the future, how long has it been missing?” Stiles asks.

“About four hundred of your years,” Thor says, like that means nothing. Stiles blinks because how is he supposed to Google search for something that old? It would be in a museum he’s sure, or someone’s private collection.

“Agent Stilinski will put together a list of questions, maybe between him and Loki we can narrow down our search radius,” Director Fury says.

“It would probably be more helpful if I could speak with Loki directly,” Stiles says, and the room explodes in a cacophony of ‘absolutely not’s and ‘over my dead bodies’.

Director Fury just waits, tapping his fingers against the edge of the table.

“Agent Stilinski will put together a list of questions to start with and if it becomes necessary, _maybe_ you’ll be able to ask those questions of him personally.”

“If it comes down to it, I really think I should be the one to go in with him,” Clint says his voice full of barely concealed tension, Stiles has his hand on his leg and can feel the trembling there. The need to do something, fight something.

“And I really think that this is a weapon’s free area and I can count four on your person right now,” Director Fury says. Clint makes a face but doesn’t disagree with him.

“Thor has assured us that Loki is no threat to us,” Agent Coulson says, he doesn’t sound like he believes it but feels he needs to say it anyway.

“Part of his punishment is the gauntlets that he wears; they remove his access to his own personal magic. He is here to help and nothing more.”

******************************************************************************

“You know, I think beating my head against a brick wall might garner me more results,” Stiles says, he’s laying his forehead against his desk and he’s so frustrated that he wants to cry.

It’s really hard to search for something that no one seems to know anything about, except it’s a sphere and can show the future.

There are apparently a _lot_ of spheres that can tell the future, none of them are the one that Thor and Loki are searching for.

“If you manage to find a brick wall on the Helicarrier to do that, let me know. We could probably charge with the frustration level as of late,” Crawford says.

Stiles hears the whisp of page turning and looks up to see what exactly Crawford is working on. They’ve mostly depleted their paper sources and have moved on to the web-based searches. Crawford isn’t even _pretending_ to work anymore; he has a copy of People magazine open on his desk. He must be really frustrated if he’s reading personal material during work times.

“When are the Avengers coming back?”

“Today, sometime, Clint’s going to text when they get here,” Stiles grins, he can’t help himself and Crawford looks over at him, rolls his eyes and mutters something along the lines of ‘young love’ under his breath.

They might, once Clint returns, hit that magical third date and he can make it to second base without Tony forcing him into some sort of electronic chastity belt.

Then he remembers that the Avengers have been gone for almost three days on a series of wild-goose chases and the smiles vanishes.

Thor and Loki came here to Earth in search of the Sphere, which meant it had to be here. They had tracked it, somehow, here. And if Thor is off searching with the Avengers without finding it…

“Loki,” Stiles mutters, he rubs at the spot on the back of his neck, Loki knows more about how to track the sphere than he’s told any of them. And maybe Clint and the others are right; maybe he’s helping Thor search for the sphere for his own purposes…

Or maybe he’s waiting for someone to ask the right questions.

******************************************************************************

“With all due respect, sir, I’m an adult,” Stiles says, he’s standing at attention, eyes focused on a spot on the wall behind Director Fury. It has taken him two days to get this meeting and four hours to figure out a way to ditch Clint so that he could attend it.

“Since we don’t hire children, I would hope so,” Director Fury says. He’s staring at him, unblinking. It’s unnerving.

“Loki knows how to find the sphere,” Stiles says. Director Fury blinks at him but doesn’t say a word. “He has to, I don’t know him on a personal level, not like you guys, but he doesn’t strike me as the type of person to go on a road trip for the sake of brotherly bonding.”

They sit there in silence and Director Fury stares at him and Stiles counts the indents in the wall and wonders how many of them are actually lined with explosives and tries his damnedest to not fidget or beg for forgiveness.

“You’ll have ten minutes,” Director Fury says finally.

“Awesome,” Stiles breathes, now he just has to come up with a way to make Loki tell him everything he knows.

“And I’ll accompany you, since if I don’t the Avengers will most likely break out into fisticuffs to determine which one would go with you.”

******************************************************************************

He’s pacing the room when they get there, some sort of erratic pattern that probably makes sense in his own head. He stops dead when the door opens and his face moves into a bland, bored expression when Director Fury walks in.

Stiles follows and the door closes quietly behind them.

The man, Loki, Stiles knows this, looks between them, brow furrowing slightly, his nose wrinkles as he sniffs delicately, and he focuses more intently on Stiles.

“Is SHIELD bringing children to work for them now?” he asks, his voice is soft, pleasant sounding with a hint of an accent.

Director Fury is silent, standing near the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m Agent Stilinski, I um, wanted to talk to you about the sphere,” he says, he stands there on one side of the table, Loki on the other, Director Fury watching with a blank expression on his face.

“What more can I tell you that I have not already shared?”

“How about where it is,” Stiles says, he takes a step forward and pulls out a chair, slides in to the seat and crosses his hands together.

“And what makes you believe that I have any knowledge of its location,” Loki sounds curious, and he doesn’t outright deny that he has any idea where the sphere is so Stiles counts it as a win.

Stiles smiles.

“Because, honestly, I don’t think you’d be here if you didn’t. I think you thought this would be a quick in and out and SHIELD and the Avengers would probably never be the wiser, and you were probably bored being bound up in your shiny chains and not able to make a move without someone watching you.”

Loki narrows his eyes at him, his shoulders squaring as he holds himself stiff and tall.

“Do I not terrify you? The last that I was here I brought your city, I brought this _ship_ to its knees.”

“Of course you do, I’m not _stupid_ ,” Stiles fights to keep from rolling his eyes. “But life in the city goes on, and the ship flies on and to be perfectly honest, I’ve faced scarier things than you.”

“You are what, all of twelve years, what could you possibly have faced that is more terrifying than I?” Loki asks, he leans forward over the table and he’s sniffing at him again, it’s oddly familiar, being so similar to the way the wolves sniff to gain a scent. Behind him where he can’t see he’s sure that Director Fury is moving closer, ready to intervene if necessary.

“I don’t know; there was the Alpha Pack with nothing but my lacrosse stick and an Alpha that couldn’t plan an offensive campaign if it hand delivered itself to him. There was the Ogre, and the fairies aren’t so much scary as annoying,” he waves a hand.

“An Alpha Pack,” Loki says slowly, his eyes are narrowing and Stiles would run fleeing from the room but then Loki will most likely not share anything with them.

“An Alpha Pack is a pack of Alpha Werewolves that are bound together by their need to subjugate weaker packs and take their territory for their own, they do not leave survivors, let alone _human_ survivors.”

“Who said they were the ones that survived.”

******************************************************************************

“What do you know of magic?” Loki had asked and Stiles had shrugged. He’s knows some, they don’t tend to run into many witches and the few things that he himself has managed to do he doesn’t actually count as magic.

He sits at his desk in his office, Clint has already been by once and they’re supposed to meet in twenty minutes for dinner in the cafeteria and a movie that they’ll watch on Stiles’ laptop in his room.

The rest of the Avengers have left the Helicarrier so Stiles is hopeful that they might actually make it to third base before Tony turns on the sprinkler system or has Clint somehow electronically ejected from his room.

He runs his thumb over the keypad of his phone and then punches in the series of numbers. He has them memorized because writing them down somewhere means that the pack would have found them and considering the number doesn’t call any one of them they would have been suspicious enough to investigate.

The phone goes to voice mail which he expected and he waits for the electronic voice to stop talking and the beep.

“It’s me; I need to see you, same place, normal time.”

******************************************************************************


	15. Chapter 15

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 15/?**

Their third date is dinner in the cafeteria and a movie on his laptop as they lay across his bed. They could have done something better, Stiles knows that.

But he’s also smart enough to know that leaving the Helicarrier with Clint means being tailed by at least one Avenger that he can see and electronically by Tony if not Director Fury.

He has to wonder if they think he’ll lose whatever knowledge of the supernatural he has if he has sex.

He won’t, he’s had sex before and still managed to remember how to lace an arrow with wolfsbane or trap an evil spirit.

They finish the movie and are just lying there in silence, Stiles kind of propping himself up on Clint’s chest, Clint sort of nuzzling at his neck in a way that Stiles would say was wolfish if it was anybody but Clint.

It’s quiet, peaceful, so that is of course when the banging starts on his door.

“Maybe if we ignore it they’ll go away,” Stiles says.

“It’s Stark, he’ll jimmy the door,” Clint mutters, he rests his hand on the back of Stiles’ head and tugs him down, kissing him slowly.

Stiles is just getting comfortable, he’s forgotten all about the knocking with the way that Clint is hard underneath him and there’s a little hitch to his hips. Stiles hasn’t gotten off by dry humping since he was in high school and in a steady relationship with the porn on his computer and his right hand.

He could certainly do so now, he grinds down and Clint grinds up, the hand not cupping the back of his head going to press against his ass.

“I will toss cold water on you two, don’t think I won’t,” he hears and Stiles groans, one last hard kiss pressed against Clint’s lips.

“Why?!?” he whines and Tony crosses his arms and glares at him.

“I’m just looking out for your best interests,” he sniffs and manages to look affronted at the same time.

“It’s sex,” Stiles says, “We’re all consenting adults here, would you be this cock blocking if it was a prostitute or something?”

“Fourth date,” Tony says stubbornly, and pointedly doesn’t answer Stiles’ question. Which is actually more of an answer then if he’d actually answered it.

“This is for your own good, think of how well you’ll know each other,” Tony says, Stiles looks down when Clint groans.

“You’re a fucking bastard, you know that, Stark?”

“Completely legitimate,” Tony says brightly. “Mom and dad were _totally_ married.”

******************************************************************************

“Tell me again why we had to sneak out at 0-dark-30?” Crawford asks, he’s shivering in his thin jacket, Stiles wonders why he’s not wearing his winter jacket.

“Because I didn’t want anyone to see us,” Stiles says sensibly. That means that he didn’t want anyone in anyway affiliated with the Avengers to see him going off the Helicarrier without an Avengers escort.

It’s bad enough that he’s doing this in the first place, to get the Avengers involved in what is peripherally pack business would be bad.

“You mean you didn’t want anyone that knows that you’re not supposed to come down in the city without an escort to see you leaving.”

“I have you.”

“I’m pretty sure that considering I weigh as much or possibly less than you that I would not be considered a suitable escort.”

“Well that’s just stupid because you’ve been with SHIELD longer and have most likely had more self-defense courses then I have.”

“And there’s a reason that I have a desk job, because I can’t throw a punch to save my life, or to save yours,” Crawford makes a face and Stiles throws an arm over his shoulder.

“We won’t even be gone long enough for anyone to know that we’re missing.”

Crawford just shoots him a look that says that he’s highly disappointed that he’s evidently been doing the good drugs and not sharing.

******************************************************************************

The usual place is a small, blink and you’ll miss it shop in a neighborhood that kind of scares Stiles on a bunch of different levels.

The werewolves in the city won’t touch him, but that leaves all sorts of _other_ things both human and not to worry about.

“This place, really?” Crawford is close behind him, like he’s afraid if he’s not physically attached to Stiles he’s going to get left behind.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Stiles says as he pushes the door open, a bell rings above it and he shivers when he feels the wards brush over his skin.

“It’s a dump,” Crawford says, he doesn’t make any outward appearance at having sensed anything about the doorway.

“Didn’t your mother ever warn you about judging a book by its cover,” a feminine voice coos softly from the dark. It’s an old trick so Stiles only rolls his eyes as Crawford jumps high enough for both of them.

“Back off,” he says voice low and calm. “Or I pull my phone out and hit speed dial 2.”

“Aw,” she comes further into the bad lighting in the shop, her hair is pulled back in a severe bun, the only thing that’s recognizable about her is her eyes and her voice. _Glamour_ , he thinks. “Stiles Stilinski, _you_ are an annoyance that I wish I could sweep away.”

“But you _owe_ me your life, so you won’t,” Stiles smirks, crossing his arms over his chest. “Because you want to keep breathing and if Derek and Boyd find out where you are you’ll be werewolf food.”

She snarls wordlessly at him, but he’s not lying so she can’t disagree.

“What do you want? Make it fast and make it interesting.”

Stiles tilts his head at her and she scowls at him as they wait, it’s the usual standoff. They’ve met like this at least once a year since Stiles came to the city.

“ _Fine_ ,” she breathes, “blessed be _brother_ ,” she says sarcastically, “safe entrance granted to thee and thou guest.”

The wards shiver a bit and Stiles relaxes, he glances over at Crawford and his mouth is opening and closing.

“He looks like a fish,” she says and rolls her eyes. “Haven’t you ever seen a practicing witch before, child?”

“Child?” Crawford sputters. “I’m older than you are.”

“Oh, she’s older than she looks,” Stiles says, he wanders the shop, hand hovering over various items. Never touching anything because Janice is a vindictive enough witch that he wouldn’t put it past her to have spelled anything and everything that might have caught his interest once he called her.

He saved her life; he continues to save her life on a daily basis by not telling his pack where she is. That doesn’t mean that they like or trust each other.

“What do you want, Stiles?” she asks, she crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the front counter, Crawford stays by the door looking like he would rather flee for his life than stay where he is but also knows that the Avengers would kill him if he left Stiles here alone.

“I need a spell.”

She snorts a laugh and when he looks over at her she looks more closely like the seventeen year-old runaway that Boyd had fallen in love with.

She’s not seventeen, she’s four times past that, but a steady diet of witchcraft and werewolf blood mixed with the venom of a willing vampire has kept her young and at the age she was when she started using.

“ _You_ , need a spell, from _me_?” she laughs. “Write your own fucking spell.”

“I can’t do that,” Stiles says.

“Can’t or _won’t_? Because I was in Beacon Hills when you warded the Hale pack lands, it must have taken a lot of energy, were you sipping on werewolf blood when you managed that? You fucking hypocrite.”

Stiles frowns at her, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He’s done a little stuff, low level ash circles, protection wards on the pack house and his dad’s house and car.

She stalks closer, the illusion that she’s using fades a bit and he can see her hair flutter down around her face as it vanishes, Crawford makes a noise that sounds like a whimper.

“There were three witches in Beacon Hills when the Alpha Pack was making a nuisance of themselves, I know I didn’t cast it, I wouldn’t bother it’s a werewolf and Hunter infested rat hole, but you and your dad…” her lips curls and his eyes narrow. “Stilinski is an old Russian name, do you know that? And I did a lot of research when I made it out of that town alive.”

“Bully for you, and _why_ did you make it out of town alive? Remind me again? Oh right, because I _helped_ you against my own better judgment. I went against my pack so I wouldn’t have the blood of a human being on my hands,” Stiles mutters. “Is this your way of saying that if I want a spell I should look elsewhere, because I could consider our agreement null and void and send Boyd and Derek a helpful message telling them where you are.”

“This is my way of saying I don’t understand why you don’t write the fucking spell yourself considering you have five times the magical ability that I do and you don’t need to be pumped up on some god-awful cocktail of werewolf and vampire blood in order to accomplish half of what I do.”

Stiles stares at her and she stares back at him and Crawford is edging toward the door like he can make it out before the fists or spells start flying.

“Fine,” she grumbles, “what I am looking for, people, place, thing?”

“Thank you,” Stiles says, “And a thing, a magic ball to be exact.”

She rolls her eyes and he can hear the sarcasm in her voice when she says, “I sell four different sizes ranging in price from $9.99 to $50, for you I’ll even give a discount.”

“This is an _actual-fax_ magic ball,” Stiles says, patient as always.

“Real? Like actually shows the future and shit? Because that doesn’t happen, normally it’s the caster not the implement that they’re utilizing.”

“Yeah, well, I know what I’m looking for. Magic ball that tells the future.”

She gnaws on her bottom lip, looking like the uncertain teen-ager that she most certainly is not.

“There are old stories,” she says finally. “About a ball that could tell the future regardless of who gazed upon it.”

“And where is that ball now?” Crawford asks, interest peaked enough to not look four seconds from wetting himself.

“They’re _old_ stories for a _reason_ , the last known story about it was about 100 years ago, back then it was in a private collection owned by Duresh Suryet. He’s dead now and his collection was mostly sold off, they called it the Verizon Sphere. The stories say that that even when no one was gazing upon it you could see storm clouds in it.”

“Stormy, gloomy sphere of doom, sounds like the one,” Stiles nods, at least they have a name to search by and a last known owner. It was more then they’d had when they walked in.

“Our deal stands, right Stiles?” she asks, she stills looks young, it’s disconcerting and he wishes that he was the type of person that could just call the pack and say here she is. She tried to kill Boyd, _would_ have killed Boyd.

But she’s human, and Stiles can’t justify the killing of humans. He doesn’t have it in him.

“Our deal stands,” Stiles says. “You don’t hurt anyone, you don’t bleed any wolves, don’t get noticed by anything and I don’t tell anyone where you are.”

She smiles brilliantly at him and for a brief second he can see what captured Boyd’s interest.

******************************************************************************

“So at least we have a name and a location,” Crawford says, he’s got his phone out and is probably looking for the number for a cab company, he obviously hasn’t noticed the car parked on the other side of the street.

“We have a name and a location for a hundred years ago, unless you have some heretofore unknown to me time machine that’s not going to do us any good.”

“It’s more than we had when went in.”

“True, true,” Stiles says, he crosses the street. “You can put your phone away, our ride is already here.”

Crawford looks at him, eyes puzzled, and then his face sort of goes pasty white, Stiles grabs his arm lest he pass out while all the blood flees from his upper extremities.

“Knock, knock,” he says tapping on the window with his other hand.

The door opens and Stiles kind of pushes Crawford in, climbing in behind him and closing the door. Tony is sitting there sipping on what Stiles hopes is a coffee and not some steaming alcoholic beverage.

“So nice conversation with the girl that you’re hiding from your pack?” he asks brightly. Stiles scowls and Crawford blinks, managing to somehow not look directly at Tony even though he’s sitting right across from him.

“Stop bugging me, it’s creepy and invasive and I’ll tell Agent Coulson.”

“I bug because I love.”

******************************************************************************


	16. Chapter 16

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 16/?**

The car is moving and Stiles sits back and relaxes, tapping his fingers together and waiting.

“Where are we going?” Crawford finally asks, he’s looking out the window which Stiles never manages because they’re sitting backwards and cars that he’s not driving always make him a little nauseated if he hasn’t eaten anything.

“Airstrip,” Tony says, he’s got a phone and a tablet out; it’s actually quite impressive, even Danny who would probably have his phone surgically implanted if he could, only manages to utilize one electronic device at a time.

“Why are we going to the airstrip?” Stiles asks, he glances over at Crawford who looks as alarmed as he feels. “Because you can just drop us off and we can take the shuttle back to the Helicarrier.”

Crawford is nodding emphatically, he kind of looks like a bobblehead a little bit.

“Nope,” Tony pops his ‘p’ and looks up at them. “Agent says to bring you to the airstrip, I’m bringing you to the airstrip.”

“And by Agent, you mean Agent Coulson, I’m assuming?”

Tony twists his lips at them and raises his eyebrows.

“I don’t need to be here for this, right,” Crawford reaches for the door. “So I’ll just get out here and take a cab back to…”

“Sorry Crawford,” and to be honest Tony does look slightly apologetic with a side of a tad bit amused. “Coulson said both of you, so both of you I shall deliver.”

“And you always do what Agent Coulson says,” Stiles says.

“No, very rarely,” Tony laughs. “But this is an easy one so…” he shrugs.

“We’re so getting fired,” Crawford mutters.

“We’re not getting fired,” Stiles states.

“Exactly, and even if SHIELD decided to do that I’m pretty sure that you’d find yourself employed by SI pretty damn quickly.”

“You better have a comparable medical plan and I’m going to need at least two weeks of vacation.”

******************************************************************************

The jet is waiting for them, and he can see Coulson waiting at the ramp, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t look like he’s going to drop them from 20,000 feet at the first opportunity so Stiles only drags his feet a little bit as he follows Tony.

He has to keep hold of Crawford though and drag him along behind.

“I’m not field trained,” Crawford says as soon as they get within shouting distance of Coulson.

“You know when you get assigned bodyguards, common practice is actually to take those bodyguards with you when you go out in public,” Coulson says.

“I was just going to see a ‘friend’,” Stiles says, he’s fairly sure that the air quotes are audible to all, “she doesn’t deal well with people that look like they might be werewolves or work for the government. Also I’ve made a point of mentioning that the Avengers are kind of wasted on bodyguard detail.”

“They volunteered. Volunteers are never turned down unless they’re needed elsewhere.”

“I took Crawford with me, he works for SHIELD.”

“Crawford was with you when you were taken originally, also, as he’s so helpfully pointed out, he’s not field trained.”

“I don’t know why I even still need bodyguards, no one has tried to kill me, snatch me or otherwise had ill intentions towards me since I’ve come back from Beacon Hills, and even when I was in Beacon Hills it was strangely quiet,” he makes a mental note to call Derek or Scott and find out how many apocalypses they’ve averted since he left.

“That you know about.”

******************************************************************************

“So we found the sphere,” Steve says, Stiles blinks at him. They’re in the air and Crawford is a small huddled mass next to him.

“That was fast,” Stiles says, he nudges Crawford and he makes a noise that sounds like ‘kill me now’.

“Well we have a name for it now,” Coulson says, “and no one is trying to hide it.”

“Museum in Helsinki,” Tony puts in, he’s tapping on his tablet, Stiles can’t tell from this angle if he’s working or playing a game. He’s tapping a little too frequently for it to be work, he’s going to put even money on a game.

“And that’s why you’re here,” Steve says, he nods at them and Stiles nods back and tries not to look like he doesn’t have the faintest clue what they’re doing here, on a jet, with the Avengers.

At least they’re not in uniform, so maybe it won’t actually be classified as an Avengers mission.

“Does someone want to explain _why_ we’re here? Especially if all you’re doing is going after the sphere?”

He looks over at where Clint is sitting sprawled on a bench, legs straight out in front of him. He’s got a look that Stiles can’t decipher on his face but his entire countenance screams ‘don’t fucking talk to me’. Obviously not happy with Stiles’ decision to go down into the city with only Crawford with him.

“The sphere is in a museum, you are here as SHIELD’s expert on the supernatural, Crawford as your assistant. Thor is here as a diplomat from Asgard to request it’s return. Both Thor and Loki assure us that it should be a simple matter of gazing into the sphere to determine whether it’s the one they’re looking for or not.”

Coulson looks at him and Stiles looks back.

“I’m not field trained,” he says weakly, he’s pretty sure that it’s not going to matter.

“That’s something that we’ll rectify at a date and time not now, Natasha and Steve will be accompanying you in civilian clothes,” Coulson says, Clint scowls at him and Coulson just looks at him, one eyebrow raising. There’s a silent argument happening that Clint apparently loses by the way his shoulders slump in response.

“Conflict of interest anyway, Legolas,” Tony says, he taps three times in quick success and grins. “What did I miss?”

“Everything,” Coulson says. “But it doesn’t matter because you’ll be staying here with Hawkeye and myself and helping us cover comms.”

“That seems like a waste of my time and skills; I could have just stayed home and slept.”

“And then you would have pouted because you weren’t involved.”

******************************************************************************

The museum is sort of old and run down when they arrive. Steve is driving, Natasha in the front seat with Thor sitting between him and Crawford regaling them with stories.

He can’t see really see Crawford around Thor, but Steve is anything but stupid, he engaged the child safety locks pretty early on.

“It seems strangely anti-climactic,” Stiles says, mostly to himself, but he’s in a car with a super-soldier, a spy/assassin, a god and Crawford.

“What was that?” Crawford asks, Stiles peers around Thor to see Crawford kind of trying to become one with the door. In the front seat, Natasha has twisted around to look at him, her finger is pressed to ear which means she’s already got an ear piece in and is communicating everything to Agent Coulson, Tony and Clint.

“It just seems anticlimactic,” Stiles repeats. “Normally there’s like a fierce battle and blood spilled and well, a fight; to just walk into the museum and walk back out with the sphere, it just seems anti-climactic is all.”

“Take the easy ones when you can get them,” Steve says, Stiles can almost hear the ‘son’ at the end.

“We will battle another time,” Thor nods. “Though we do not yet have the sphere, a battle may still rage for it.”

******************************************************************************

The curator meets them at the front door, all smiles, if he’s upset at the prospect at losing an artifact it doesn’t show on his face. SHIELD must have offered the museum a large sum of money to not only be able to see and touch the sphere but also to leave with it in hand if turns out to be the one they’re looking for.

Of course he could be just thrilled about meeting Thor, the man has to be in his sixties but he’s blushing and toeing the ground like a pre-teen girl meeting a pop idol.

His assistant just looks amused; she has a clipboard in hand and speaks in stilted English to Natasha.

Stiles hangs back by Crawford, Steve right in front of them as Thor and Natasha smooth the way for them. There’s a quiet eeriness in the air of the museum broken only by a sound; he can’t put his finger on what it is. It sounds like a hum or a trill and changes periodically; it shouldn’t be there in the quiet. It sends shivers down his spine and he tries to ignore it.

“Let us go see if the sphere is the one that we seek,” Thor says, voice booming loud in the emptiness of the museum, it startles him a little and Stiles jerks when Crawford puts a hand on his arm. His eyes widen in query and Stiles shakes his head.

He’s just got sensitive hearing from hanging around werewolves for latter half of his teen-age years.

That’s all.

******************************************************************************

The sphere is round and larger than Stiles was expecting, Janice wasn’t wrong in her description. He can see movement across the sphere even though the room it’s being kept in is dark and dank and has that musty smell that comes from having a room full of old stuff.

Thor looks at it first, face going hard and white all at the same time, his eyes narrow and he studies it closely, watching whatever it’s choosing to show him in silence, he doesn’t share. Just nods once.

“It is the one,” Thor announces, his voice sounds grave.

“Agent Stilinski?” Natasha asks, she holds up her hand gesturing him towards the sphere and Stiles steps forward.

“We can’t just take Thor’s word for it?” he asks even though he knows the answer. If they could take Thor’s word for it there would have been no need for him and Crawford to be flown halfway across the world so Stiles could gaze into a crystal ball and be slowly driven insane by the hum/trill/whatever noise that is still there.

It’s muted background noise at the moment while his heart tries to beat its way out of his chest. But it’s never-ending, and annoying because he’s 98% sure that no one else can hear it.

“No,” Natasha says, she looks at him expectantly; he sighs heavily and turns to the sphere. He doesn’t look directly into it at first. Instead he closes his eyes and sets his hands on either side of the pedestal, steeling himself for whatever it’ll choose to show him.

Death, destruction, it covers a very broad area when it comes to his life and the world that surrounds it.

He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.

And is extremely grateful for the pedestal the sphere is on because it’s the only thing that keeps his knees from buckling and himself from an embarrassing spectacle.

He can feel the tears in his eyes, can feel himself shaking, can feel the panic attack that’s building up inside him, when he manages to blink and look away.

“Stiles?” Steve’s hand is on his shoulder and he’s evidently been saying his name for at least a few minutes by the worry on his face.

“I’m okay,” Stiles manages to say after he clears his throat a few times, he blinks rapidly, shakes his head. “Thor’s right, this is the one.”

******************************************************************************

Thor and Steve have wandered off with the museum curator to find a box or something to put the sphere in. Stiles is sitting on the steps leading up to the second level of the museum, he’s got his head in his hands and is just breathing.

Nothing but breathing.

Crawford sits next to him and Natasha paces back and forth in front of them.

“What did you see?” Crawford asks, his voice is quiet and hushed but it still carries by the way that Natasha looks their way.

“Death, destruction,” Stiles says, his voice is muffled by his hands. “You know, the norm.”

“Anything of note?” Crawford says, Stiles looks over at him and he’s biting his lip and twining his fingers together.

“I didn’t see you,” Stiles says softly. He saw a lot of other bodies, Crawford’s had not been among them. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t there though.

The hum/trill noise is back, its sound louder now that it’s not being muffled by Stiles’ heart and the noise of the others.

“Can we wander around?” he asks, Natasha just looks at him, studying him.

“Are you looking for something?” she asks, her head cocks to the side.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

Or hear it, Stiles stands and walks down the few steps, Crawford on his heels. He looks to the left and then the right, turns to go to the left. It’s the opposite direction then the one they originally went in order to see the sphere.

Whatever is making the noise is in the museum itself, not in the storage room that the sphere had been housed in.

The curators’ assistant joins them as they walk, clipboard still clutched in her arms. She looks tired in the same way that Stiles feels. He doesn’t think she can hear the noise because he thinks she would have been driven to find it prior to them coming.

The noise gets louder and softer depending on which direction he goes, it’s like a game of hot and cold.

“Stiles?” Crawford asks after he turns right takes four steps and then pivots and goes in the opposite direction.

“Shh,” Stiles says absently.

The trilling is becoming a humming sound that sounds like music for a split second then transfers into something that sounds like a never-ending scream, his eyes widen and his shoulders hunch in defense.

Right in front of him is a display case with a sword in it.

“Ceremonial dagger,” the curators’ assistant says. “From the 1700’s, is not that old compared to some of the museums items; its history is actually quite boring, it was mostly used as decoration.”

Stiles clears his throat, then can’t find the words to articulate what he wants to say. How do you say that there dagger was a murder weapon wielded against witches that were otherwise defenseless? He doesn’t know how he knows that to be the case, but he feels the certainty of it settling in his chest.

27 witches were murdered by this dagger, innocent witches guilty of nothing more than practicing white magic to protect themselves and their families. One of them, he believes, was related to his family by blood.

“Stiles?” Crawford’s hand is warm on his shoulder.

“Not a ceremonial dagger,” he says finally, he hopes that no one else can hear the tremor in his voice. By the way that Natasha steps in front of him, blocking his view of the dagger so she can take her own look at he’s not successful.

“The placard calls it a ceremonial dagger,” she says, her fingers tap against the plastic of the case the dagger is housed in.

“It was used to kill witches,” Stiles says finally, he presses a hand to his chest.

“No, no,” the curators’ assistant shakes her head in denial. “Ceremonial daggers were for ceremony, worn on belts and not actually used.”

“Trust me,” Stiles says, the screaming has stopped, but the memory of it is still there. “This one was used to slit the throats of 27 white witches.”

******************************************************************************


	17. Chapter 17

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 17/?**

He leans his head against the side of his seat and closes his eyes, the plane is in the air and Agent Coulson had, thankfully, not wanted to debrief them right at that moment.

Or maybe he just doesn’t want to debrief _him_.

It’s probably a good thing; Stiles had gotten a good look at himself in the mirror when he’d visited the restroom (Crawford an ever-present shadow beside him) and his face was sheet white, his eyes huge in his face.

To his own eyes he visibly looks about seven seconds away from a break and not being able to reach his father on his phone hadn’t helped matters much.

He’d left a message that he hopes didn’t sound too crazy, and his phone is on vibrate in his pocket so when his father calls him back he’ll know.

Someone sits next to him and Stiles issues a small prayer to whatever deity is listening that it not be someone who wants to talk.

“Do you want to talk about?” Clint asks, when Stiles lifts his head and opens his eyes.

“No.”

“Okay,” Clint tugs him so he’s leaning against him, arm going around him and pressing his head down on his shoulder.

“Does this mean that you’re not mad anymore?”

“I was never mad,” Clint just sits there, a quiet and steady presence. Stiles closes his eyes again and goes back to breathing.

******************************************************************************

Stiles doesn’t ask about the knife, they brought it with them and SHIELD put it somewhere for safe keeping; Stiles couldn’t in good conscience leave it behind. The knife needs to be cleansed; the witches murdered by it laid to final rest.

“We need to find enough witches to form a temporary coven,” Stiles says and Crawford makes a noise and turns to face him. On his computer screen ‘Tony’ had somehow gotten a body and is doing the Macarena, it’s slightly disturbing though it does make him smile which was probably his intent.

“Do you happen to know enough witches that can do that? Because I don’t and I’m pretty sure that an ad on Craig’s List isn’t the way that you want to go, unless you want some fruitcakes with a side of insanity.”

“God no,” Stiles winces “There’s a forum we can use, put out some feelers, see if anyone is willing to help.”

They’d found it be accident, but there’s some knowledgeable people that pop up on it every once in a while. They don’t normally stay around for too long, there must be another, top secret forum that Stiles, Danny and Lydia have never been invited to join. And they’d learned early on that the key on the forum to getting what you want is to be honest without being too honest.

They normally leave that up to Danny, he’s masterful at it; but Danny’s not here and Stiles isn’t going to involve his pack in this unless he absolutely, positively _has_ too.

His phone rings at his desk and he picks it up rubbing at his forehead, “Stilinski.”

“Hey, you okay? You sounded a bit…” his dad doesn’t go into any detail. Stiles is pretty sure that he sounded crazy on the phone.

“Just wanted to check and make sure you were okay,” Stiles says, forcing his voice to be light and not at all worried.

Of the visions that the sphere had shown him; him and his dad on their knees with their hands tied behind their back, blood on their faces and Derek snarling at some unknown enemy in full blown Alpha form had been one of the more disturbing ones.

Mostly because of the blood and his dad and him and the fact that wasn’t an Avenger to be seen and he’s not sure that that means.

He hasn’t had a chance to sit down and ask Thor how likely it was that the visions that the sphere had shown them would come true. If there was a way to change things so that the events that were shown would not come to pass.

He hopes that he can make a different choice and have that not happen.

“I’m fine, Scott’s already been by to search the house for contraband this week and the Katie at the grocery store wouldn’t let me buy my bag of cheese puffs. How are you managing to do that from where you are?”

“I just want you to live a long and healthy life, dad,” Stiles says.

“Then let me enjoy some stuff, kid.”

“There’s been nothing bad going on? No apocalypses or end of the world type events?”

“Scott and Allison are taking a break again, does that count?”

“No, that just means that it’s February, they’ll be made up by Easter.”

******************************************************************************

“So where do we stand on the knife?” Coulson asks at their next meeting. Stiles fidgets a little, because he doesn’t want to talk about the knife. He’s _tired_ of talking about the knife and explaining what he’d gotten from it.

Most of all he’s tired of the remembered screams of witches being murdered.

“I’ve got some calls out, I might have enough witches to form a full coven and then it’s just a matter of…” he waves a hand.

Coulson looks at him, a line forming between his eyes.

“I thought witches didn’t form covens.”

Stiles looks at him and thinks, he has vivid recollections of all the reports that he’s written, “I don’t remember doing a report on witches, did I do one and forget about it?”

Coulson shakes his head, “when you were otherwise detained,” read, kidnapped by Dreymona, “one of your pack members mentioned witches, magic and the fact that contrary to the stories of old they’re solitary creatures that don’t form covens.”

“Well actually most of the stories of old, fairy tales and such had witches performing their spells by themselves. Even Disney got that part right. But for something that needs a lot of power, like cleaning the knife, for example, a temporary coven can be formed and all the power of the combined spell crafting can be channeled into one task.”

“So the knife tested positive for blood residue, mostly on the handle and in the pockets between where the handle end and the blade itself really begins. Obviously whoever wielded it didn’t clean the knife completely between…”

“Murders,” Stiles supplies helpfully.

“Exactly.”

******************************************************************************

Once he explains a half-dozen times what he’s looking to do, the knife that he found and what it had been used for, it seems like he’s got witches of actual and imagined power that want to participate in the ritual.

He does supernatural background checks on all of them to make sure that no one has tried to take over the world or subjugate another supernatural species. Then he chooses eight names and wipes the history so that SHIELD won’t have names and backgrounds on 37 witches.

And it’s not that he doesn’t trust SHIELD, it’s just _he_ doesn’t want to be the one that that outs an entire society to them.

He likes to think maybe he at least learned from Laurentville.

******************************************************************************

He’s curled up watching a movie on his laptop when the he hears the tapping on his door, he makes a face because he’s almost to a good part and he’d kind of wanted to finish the movie and have an early night.

He’s got his coven, provided everyone signs the papers that he’s been assured had been couriered by SHIELD agents to them, now he just needs to find some sort of neutral ground to perform the ceremony.

It has to be neutral ground, eight witches of varying degrees of power with no bounds?

“Hey,” he says when he opens the door and sees Clint kind of lounging there. “I thought you guys were gone?”

“Took Thor and Loki back to the drop point,” Clint says, he touches Stiles’ hand and Stiles steps back and lets him enter, closing and securing the door behind him.

“You want to finish watching a movie with me?” he asks and Clint settles on his side on his bed, tugs Stiles down to lay down in front of him and presses a button on the laptop to start the movie back up.

He feels Clint’s lips against the back of his neck and when something amusing happens he’s the only that laughs.

“I can turn it off,” he offers, he lays his hand over the one that Clint’s got resting on his hip, squeezing his fingers.

“It’s good,” Clint mumbles, he sounds half asleep and Stiles squirms and shift until he’s on his back. Clint has his eyes shut and a ghost of a smile on his lips. He looks exhausted though Stiles can’t think of any reason why, the Avengers haven’t had a mission since they returned from Helsinki and Clint hasn’t had a solo mission since Christmas.

“Pre-Mission briefings,” Clint says, his eyes don’t open though he curls into Stiles’ side, head sharing the same pillow.

“Don’t read my mind,” Stiles murmurs, he drags his fingers across Clint’s face, tracing his lips. Clint smiles softly at him. “It’s our fourth date, no one is going to come breaking through that door threatening pain and dismemberment; and you’re going to be asleep in like ten minutes, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be up in two hours, max,” Clint says, he bites the tips of Stiles’ fingers.

“Then _I’ll_ be asleep,” Stiles says. He actually works a normal schedule and sleeps at normal people times.

“Then I’ll wake you up,” Clint somehow manages a leer with eyes closed and half asleep. It’s commendable in a way. Clint tugs him in closer and uses arms and legs to latch him into place. He should shift and turn off the movie; instead he lets it continue to play in the background and closes his eyes.

He’ll take a quick nap and maybe when Clint wakes up they’ll have fourth date, yay no one is going to interrupt us sex.

******************************************************************************

When he wakes up they’ve shifted, evidently.

Either that or his mattress has gained sentience and is breathing underneath him.

Considering that Clint has apparently lost his shirt at some point during the night, which he slept through? What the fuck?! He could have been running hands over naked Clint-flesh!

Though his head is resting on a warm chest and there are arms wrapped tightly around him and he feels safe and warm and he thinks this might be one of his new favorite places on earth.

“Next time, we sleep at my place,” Clint says, his voice sounds sleep rough so he’s obviously just woken up.

“Then you’re flying me to work in the morning,” Stiles says, he shifts so he’s lying flat on Clint. Looking up at him while Clint reaches out and cups his face in one hand, running his thumb over his cheek.

“I’m really okay with that,” Stiles says, he grins brightly and sits up. Straddling Clint’s chest and grinning down at him. Clint laughs at him and there’s a quick, hands here and twist there and suddenly Stiles is flat on his back and not quite sure how he got there and Clint is smirking down at him and tugging at the tie on his sweatpants.

Stiles laughs and helps him.

******************************************************************************

He shifts in his chair and makes a face that has Crawford smirking knowingly at his computer and ‘Tony’ rolling his eyes at him.

“I think I found a place,” Stiles says, mostly to make the conversation go in a direction that doesn’t have anything to do with his sex life. Which is now more than him, his right hand and some porn. Yay him!

He grins to himself.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he frowns at the really too short list of places that can be used as neutral ground. It’s a much shorter list than he remembers; some of the packs in surrounding packlands have expanded their lands a lot since the last time he tried to find neutral ground.

He’s not sure if he should talk to Derek about it or not. He probably should, though he’s going to put it off until after they cleanse the knife.

No sense inviting trouble in the form of werewolves to a witches ritual.

******************************************************************************


	18. Chapter 18

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 18/?**

The sketch comes from… he’s not going to lie, even to himself. He doesn’t have the first fucking clue where the sketch came from.

He’d been doodling; more to keep from having to talk to Crawford and suddenly there was a center point (the knife) with two support pillars (Andrea and Carmine) and four energy beacons (Tara, Norman, Micheline, Vicky) and two spell casters (Beverly and Lauren).

“What’s this?” Crawford asks from behind him, he’s making the annoyed voice so Stiles blinks at the paper and then at him and tries to discreetly figure out how long Crawford has been standing behind him trying to get his attention.

“Um.”

“Is this…” Crawford stares at it, looks at him then stares harder at the paper.

“Yeah,” Stiles rubs a hand across his face and makes a resolution to call his father and have a really _serious_ talk about bloodlines and which side of his family tree had totally landed him with witchy blood.

With his luck, it’s both.

******************************************************************************

“So you don’t want SHIELD there,” Coulson says. He’s got a flat note to his voice and his face looks slightly disapproving.

“It’s not that _I_ don’t want SHIELD there,” he says, he keeps his voice bright and light, Coulson raises an eyebrow at him and he sighs. “It’s just, you know… the witches. They all know that Darren outed werewolves to SHIELD, the supernatural grapevine has got nothing on high school, I swear to god. And I’ve got eight witches that are willing to do this big, huge favor for me but only if there are no visible SHIELD agents standing there monitoring them and waiting to take them into custody for, you know, being witches.”

“Is that a real fear?”

“Real enough that none of them will sign the papers unless I can guarantee that when they finish the ritual they can all walk away again.”

“We’ve got no reason to hold them,” Coulson says.

“But we’re also cleansing a dagger that killed 27 of their brethren in the past,” Stiles shrugs. Fear is a very real thing, witches aren’t in the danger that werewolves and vampires and some of the more blatantly obvious not human creatures are. But Salem and now this fucking dagger…

“What about the Avengers? They’re not technically SHIELD agents,” Coulson says.

“But they’re affiliated with SHIELD,” Stiles reminds him. “It’s just going to be the witches, the dagger and me and someone that I have to personally vet. And they’re only allowing me because of the fact that I’m already tied to the supernatural community through Derek, and honestly I need Crawford there more then I need bodyguards or Avengers.”

Clint’s going to kill him, it probably makes him a horrible person that he’s actually _hoping_ for some super-villain to try and make an attempt at world domination.

It would solve a lot of his problems.

******************************************************************************

“I can stay back and let someone else go,” Crawford says.

“No,” Stiles shakes his head. He’s got the pad with his drawings in it, and he’s got two basic cleansing spells. The witches will probably want to write their own when they get a look at the dagger but he’s nothing if not optimistic that they’ll just want to get it done and over with.

Crawford just sighs at him like Stiles is doing all this on purpose to make his life hell. He idly wonders which of the Avengers had cornered him.

“We’re not even going to be gone that long,” Stiles says. He’s packed a change of clothes and his toiletry kit just in case though.

******************************************************************************

The neutral ground is about seven miles smack in the middle of two packlands. It’s got a line of natural mountain ash trees though which should make the witches feel slightly more secure.

Crawford and he are dropped off by helicopter, it’s not being flown by Clint because Stiles has a feeling that Clint would just refuse to leave. Instead it’s some nameless, SHIELD pilot who looks scared shitless which means that Clint had possibly lectured him with one hand on either his gun or his bow about how the pilots life expectancy is based entirely on Stiles returning with no injuries.

Stiles has one hand on the case that the dagger is housed in for the moment. He has a phone in the backpack slung over his shoulder and a comm in his pocket that should technically be in his ear but it screams ‘I’m an agent for the government’ so he plucked it out pretty much as soon as they stepped foot on the ground.

Crawford has his hands wrapped around the straps of his bag.

“So we just wait?” he asks, the helicopter is gone and they’re standing in the middle of an empty clearing.

“We just wait,” Stiles says. They won’t be waiting long, he glances at his watch and he’d had them dropped off 30 minutes prior to when his makeshift coven is due to show up.

******************************************************************************

Andrea is about 40, blond hair gleaming in the sunlight. She’s definitely already the leader of the little coven, power radiating off her bright enough that Stiles kind of wants to shield his eyes.

She strides into the clearing with purpose the others almost keeping pace with her.

“Mr. Stilinski,” she says, her smile is bright. There seems to be nothing fake in it. Stiles finds that almost reassuring. He’d investigated all of them, but he knows that it’s only fair that they’d probably investigated him in return.

“Hi,” he says, he doesn’t wave. Just keeps one hand on the case with the dagger, the other free at his side.

She stands in front of them, Crawford shuffling slightly back so he’s almost standing behind him.

“He’s a little nervous,” Stiles says. Andrea smiles and it looks gentle, like she’s used to dealing with people that have no ties to the supernatural community.

“So let’s get a look at this dagger, and then you can show us the outline for the cleansing and we can decide which cleansing will actually get the job done,” Andrea suggests, she looks relaxed and comfortable. She’s probably the only witch that has actually done work with a coven before.

******************************************************************************

The dagger makes them all uncomfortable, Stiles included. It’s not screaming anymore, thank god. Stiles might just call back the helicopter if it was, screw cleansing it.

Crawford being the only one without a supernatural ability is handling it. He has gloves on though, because no one wants to take the chance that there’s something lacing the knife that they haven’t been able to pinpoint and god knows they don’t want to deal with a possession on top of everything else.

They huddle around the sketch, Crawford stays by the knife just in case. He’s not armed, but there’s eight witches plus Stiles and if there’s not at least one SHIELD agent that may or may not be an Avenger in a tree somewhere nearby with a bow or gun in hand he’ll turn in the common sense badges that he and Scott made when they were twelve.

Before Scott discovered girls and hormones and lost what remained of his brain cells as a result.

Andrea looks at the sketch, purses her lips and crosses her arms over her chest.

“We’ll need an anchor,” Tara says softly.

“What?”

“She’s right,” Andrea nods once. “For a spell this size we’ll need an anchor.”

“I can probably find a ninth,” Stiles says, he could probably call Janice, have SHIELD pick her up and transport her. “I’d need a little bit of time to get someone here though.”

“Or Carmine can be the anchor and you can take her spot as a support pillar.”

“Um,” Stiles looks at her and she raises an eyebrow in response. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Rumor has it that you cast a protection spell over the Hale packlands,” Norman murmurs. The others are all nodding.

“I carved some runes,” Stiles says. “I’ve done circles with mountain ash, I’ve never…”

“Witchcraft is only 1/3 about power, the other 2/3 is about belief,” Andrea says. She sounds like a teacher in lecture mode, or Deacon trying to explain why Stiles can do some of the things that he can do. “If you believe you can do something and you have just enough power to back up that belief, then,” she shrugs.

Stiles sighs, he casts a glance over at the tree line, he’s sure that Clint and possibly at least one of the others is there, he makes a face.

“Let’s get this done,” he says finally. Andrea grins at him and Vicky and Beverly start pacing off the steps, marking faint X’s in the ground with knives.

The others linger around the papers with the two different cleansing spells on them and he wanders over to where Crawford is sitting cross-legged on the ground next to the dagger.

“We ready?” Crawford asks.

“Apparently we need an anchor,” he says.

“So are you going to play the spot of anchor or did they switch things up a bit?”

“You’re not even going to entertain the notion that I need to get my phone out of my pack and have to call in a witch that hasn’t signed non-disclosures?”

“No, because you heard the witches screaming when you found the dagger, if they didn’t figure out a way to get you into the circle I’d be worried about their intelligence.”

Stiles makes a face and makes a mental note about calling his dad one more time. Maybe this time he can actually ask the questions that he always means to when he calls.

******************************************************************************

Carmine takes her spot first, then Andrea and he step into the X’s that indicate the pillars, he can see Andrea directly across from him but he can also _feel_ her in his bones, just like he can feel Carmine anchoring their feet and power to the ground.

The power surges slightly as Tara, Norman, Micheline and Vicky step into their spots. He breathes carefully, taking great pains to keep himself calm. He can feel the second that Carmine latches them into the circle, the power surge stills, calms. Though he can feel energy, _power_ like nothing he’s ever felt before dancing over his skin.

He’s prepared when Beverly and Lauren step into the spots facing each other, the dagger on the ground an equal distance from them.

He knows the words, he wrote the spells out even though he didn’t put any belief behind them when he was transposing them to paper.

He breathes, in and out, in and out as the air and power dances around them. It tickles his skin, it makes him want to giggle.

It reminds him of a time when he was a child, maybe six or seven; his mother standing on the back porch of their house, watching them as his dad and he had dug in their backyard to plant a garden for his mom. He’d felt the same tickling against his skin as he tried to help, his dad’s hands guiding his as they dug into fresh, damp soil.

******************************************************************************


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the next arc begins...

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 19/?**

“Hey dad,” he starts out. He can hear his father breathe in, then back out.

“What’s going on? Is something wrong? I can be there in…”

“Dad, dad it’s okay,” he says, “I’m okay.”

“Well not that it’s not great to hear from you, but it’s not Sunday and…” there’s still a slight measure of panic in his voice. He hates that his fathers’ default reaction to his calling on a day not Sunday is that something is wrong and that he’s been either been physically or emotionally wounded in some way.

“I wanted to talk to you about our family history,” he says softly, he leans against the wall, pulls his knees to his chest and wraps one arm around them. The other keeps the phone pressed against his ear.

His dad is silent on the other end for long minutes. Stiles stares at the wall opposite him, there are pictures tacked up there. There’s one, one of the only ones that he has of just his mom and dad.

Before they had him, before his mom got sick and his father started trying to follow her by drinking too much and eating the wrong things.

The drinking has mostly stopped and his dad grudgingly eats the right things if they’re placed directly in front of him and he’s given no other alternatives.

“What do you want to know?” his dad asks finally, there’s a layer of trepidation in his voice. His dad doesn’t want to be having this conversation. Which Stiles can’t blame him, he kind of doesn’t want to be having this conversation either.

But he had stood as a pillar in a cleansing and he could still, even days later, feel the power coursing over and around him. For those few minutes, with all that power at his fingertips, he could understand why someone had been _scared_ enough to use that dagger to kill 27 witches.

“I remembered something this weekend,” Stiles says. “I don’t even know how I forgot but I remember being in our backyard, mom was standing on the porch and we were digging a garden.”

“Your mom liked to grow things, we did that every year,” his dad says, it sounds weak, like his dad is making a token effort but not really putting much energy or conviction behind it.

“Except,” Stiles says slowly. “Except, it was your garden, you were the one that would go out and tend to the soil and the plants growing and…”

“Do you remember your Nana Stilinski?” his father interrupts, his voice is soft, shaking a bit.

“Some, she didn’t speak any English, she always smelled like butterscotch,” Stiles remembers vaguely, being bounced on her knee and having secrets whispered to him in Russian. Maybe if he could remember what she’d whispered he could repeat it to Natasha and have her translate.

He’d been six when she’d died.

“The Argents, they hunt werewolves pretty much exclusively,” his father says.

“Yeah,” Stiles says slowly. Because while he’s pretty sure he knows where this is going, he’s also pretty sure that he’s not going to like it.

“But they’re not the only types of Hunters out there, your Nana she came to the states because of a family of witch Hunters that decided to make a nuisance of themselves.”

Stiles sits there for a minute.

“You know, I should have just followed my gut instinct and ignored Derek and told you about everything back when it started happening.”

His father laughs.

******************************************************************************

Clint is waiting in his room, lounging across his bed looking four different kinds of inviting. Stiles stops in the door and sighs.

“I’ve got a meeting with Director Fury,” he says, Crawford had taken the phone call right as they were packing things in for the day.

“I know, I’m here to take you to it,” Clint says, his voice sounds bland and bored, but there’s something in his eyes…

Stiles gets the sudden feeling that whatever this meeting is about he’s most definitely not going to like it.

******************************************************************************

Crawford is already sitting at the table when Stiles arrives with Clint; if he had to hazard a guess he’d say that Clint was in bodyguard mode, which of course makes him all the more nervous about this meeting.

Crawford sits in the seat to Crawford’s left, Clint standing behind the chair on the other side of him.

“Agent Stilinski,” Director Fury comes through the door, coat billowing out behind him.. Stiles pops to his feet, Crawford right beside him.

“Sir,” he says.

“Go ahead and sit down,” Director Fury waves his hand at them and they sit while Agent Coulson comes through the door, Steve and Natasha following him.

“What’s going on?” Stiles asks, the feeling of foreboding he’d been feeling has just been tripled by the fact that there are Avengers in the room. Next to him Crawford has his hands folded together in his lap and looks directly at the monitors at the front of the room.

Agent Coulson taps his tablet several times in quick succession and the profile pictures of the eight witches that he’d performed the cleansing on the dagger with flash up on the screen. The photos look to be surveillance photos from the cleansing.

He doesn’t ask how the hell they got them when SHIELD shouldn’t have even been there because there’s a knot in his stomach. A ball of unease that’s slowing becoming a boulder of ‘oh fuck, why is this my life!?!’

“What’s happened?” he asks slowly.

“Lauren Belmont and Norman Tragor were each found dead in their apartment’s yesterday morning,” Agent Coulson says.

Crawford makes a noise beside him and it takes a second for the words to process. That Agent Coulson is telling him that two of the eight witches that had stood across from him less than a week earlier are now dead.

“We’re searching for the other six but systems are having difficulty finding them.”

It’s because they live off the grid, Stiles should say this, should tell them that, instead he stares at the screen.

Lauren and Norman are both dead.

“Can you think of any reason why someone would have killed them?” Steve asks, his voice is gentle, like he can tell that Stiles is going into shock or getting ready to devolve into a panic attack and is trying to handle him with kid gloves so Clint doesn’t try to shoot him in the ass with an exploding arrow the next time they’re in the field.

He has to clear his throat a couple of times; and even then he has to force himself to speak around the lump.

“They’re white witches,” he says, he presses a hand to his chest; it feels like his heart is trying to frantically beat its way out to freedom. Every instinct he has is telling him to run, hide. “They were _all_ white witches, for the cleansing I chose,” he coughs. “For the cleansing all the witches _had_ to be white.”

“And what does that mean, exactly, that they were white witches?” Director Fury asks.

“It means they’ve never used their abilities against another living being,” Stiles says. “They’re pure witches; they should never be a target because…” his voice trips up and he has to clear his throat again, “because they don’t _hurt_ people.”

“Well someone obviously feels differently,” Director Fury says. “Any ideas who would target them?”

“There’s a few Hunter clans that have been mentioned in the journals we’re going through…” Crawford starts.

“Wait a minute, there’s Hunters that hunt witches.”

Stiles laughs harshly, it sounds bitter even to his own ears and Clint lays a hand on his leg hidden from view by the table.

“There’s Hunters for everything.”

******************************************************************************

He doesn’t have much; it’s the one good thing about living on the Helicarrier. He doesn’t have much in the way of belongings because he doesn’t have room for it so if he has to run, at least he won’t be leaving much behind to track him with.

He answers the directors’ questions, keeping the answers as simple as possible. He’d love to tell them everything but he knows how prophecies work, he knows how any visions, no matter how irrelevant they might be, work.

_They can’t be changed_ ; tiny, miniscule things can be modified. But the big things, the things that are strong enough to be seen by psychics and seers…

They are _fixed_ points in time, they never change.

At some point, in the fairly near future, Stiles and his father will be on their knees bound and bleeding while Derek in full blown Alpha form tries to protect them from an unknown enemy.

Clint can tell something is up, he’s attached pretty much permanently to Stiles’ side, like a really attractive growth that snarls and snaps at anyone that isn’t Crawford, an Avenger or Coulson that tries and talks to him.

It takes an amazing amount of willpower to not pat him on the head and tell him to stand down. He thinks that Clint would make an amazingly terrifying werewolf.

******************************************************************************

There are no other deaths, Lauren and Norman were the only bodies found and Stiles had asked through discreet channels that SHIELD most likely doesn’t have access to for proof of life of the remainder.

Not counting a visit to the emergency room for Micheline that may or may not have been due to a domestic incident there have been no attempts made on the others.

He relaxes a bit, maybe Lauren and Norman were just anomalies, and the others relax as well.

With the exception of Clint who doesn’t let him stray more than two feet in any direction unless he’s in closed door meetings with the director or Coulson. He doesn’t throw a fit because Clint knows Russian and Kurdish and his dad didn’t raise no fools. Stiles knows better than to shoot a gift bodyguard in the back and instead has another desk moved into his office and sets him to work translating.

So when Thor contacts SHIELD with a request for assistance by the Avengers no one thinks twice about accepting.

Except maybe Clint and after he thoroughly threatens the guards that will be taking over stalking him if there are any more deaths he even seems fine with it.

Stiles thinks he’s probably been bored stiff stuck on the Helicarrier waiting for an attack that hasn’t been forthcoming.

The Avengers leave on a Tuesday, Clint escorts him to his office than pushes him up against the door and kisses him breathless.

“They’re going to come looking for you,” Stiles mutters.

“And also I’m sitting right here and I didn’t bring popcorn so the show would be wasted,” Crawford says from behind his desk, Stiles peers over Clint’s shoulder and can see Crawford sitting there, face bright red, eyes darting everywhere in the room where they aren’t.

“And I’m not looking to give Crawford free porn anyway.”

******************************************************************************

His room is lonely without Clint there taking up all the free space, lounging on his bed and leafing through his pictures.

He tries to keep himself busy by working late into the night; that is squashed fairly quickly when Agent Coulson appears at his office and arches an eyebrow at him.

He goes to open his mouth and say something like ‘I heard you had four assistants quit because you’re not human and possibly don’t ever sleep’ but thinks better of it.

“I know it’s really short notice but did you happen to see my vacation request?” he asks instead, it’s probably a stupid question; you normally don’t see Coulson without a tablet or a communicator or his phone.

“Can I ask why you’re _asking_ for vacation time?” Coulson asks, he doesn’t add the unspoken but clearly heard ‘so when Barton asks me I can say what it’s for’.

“My dad’s birthday, also the pack wants to start planning for Spring Solstice and it’s easier if we’re all in the same room so the humans don’t get shuffled to the kiddie table.”

Coulson hmms at him and Stiles smiles winningly.

Nothing to see here, nothing going on. Just family business and pack business.

And the fact he wants to pick Allison and Chris’ brains about Witch Hunters and whether or not they’ve got Stiles’ (or his dads) scent which he definitely doesn’t feel comfortable doing that over the phone.

He understandably doesn’t mention that to Coulson.

******************************************************************************

He’s get his approval for vacation back with an attached note.

_‘FYI: If Clint is back he’s going to want to come as well as possibly Steve since it’s your fathers’ birthday. Also, it goes without saying that if you need anything call.’_

He’s book his plane reservations and forwards it to Danny, Derek and his dad immediately after receiving the confirmation. Mostly to save Danny from having to waste energy hacking the system.

He packs light, he’s only planning on being gone for a little over a week, leaving on Sunday and coming back the following Sunday. He’ll probably be hung over and regret booking himself in coach but he’d seen the first class ticket prices and choked and he’s certainly not going to ask Coulson if SHIELD would fly him out.

“I should be done with the packet I’m working on when you get back,” Crawford says, he’s rifling through his bag for something, making a pleased face when he finds the thin blue binder he’d apparently been looking for.

“There’s two more from that same year set, I’m hoping that we can find corroborating evidence that the families are linked somehow,” Stiles say. He taps his pen against his desk. ‘Tony’ has a bar and seems to be doing the limbo.

“There was mention of that demon,” Crawford makes a face, biting on his lower lip as he flips through the binder. “A’kresh? In the two that I’ve been through.”

“Yeah there was mention of him in mine too, he must have been a big deal,” three different Hunter families had fought this demon; they can’t find any proof that they all fought him at the same time or anything though. Just that they all at one time fought the demon A’kresh in 1954 around the months of June to October.

Allison is supposed to be looking through her families archives to see if the demon shows up in hers. Apparently it’s been fairly quiet so she’s got lots of free time to do research, train with her dad and pretend that Scott doesn’t exist.

******************************************************************************


	20. Chapter 20

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 20/?**

He flies home in coach, stuffed in a tiny seat beside a heavy weight wrestler and a mom with a screaming infant he wonders if he tortured puppies in a previous life.

There’s no reading, there’s no pretending to sleep. He just sits there, shoulders hunched up around his ears and prays for no problems.

******************************************************************************

His father meets him at the airport, by himself. He would have a screaming fit but no one outside SHIELD knows that there’s anything wrong.

And there’s not supposed to be anything wrong, if he hugs his dad tighter and longer than strictly necessary it just means that he really missed him.

“No entourage?” he asks, they’re on the way to baggage claim, his dads arm is slung over his shoulder.

“Scott’s waiting in the car,” his dad says and Stiles grins.

“Tell me you cracked a window at least,” his father laughs and Stiles bounces a little.

“I parked in a spot that strictly speaking is not necessarily legal; I didn’t think you’d check bags.”

“I wasn’t going to, but they weighed my carry-on and apparently there’s a limit…” Stiles shrugs.

He’s not sure why his little rolling suitcase got the evil eye from the lady at the ticket counter and the dude with the two duffel bags and backpack got to haul all his stuff through security and then spend ten minutes stuffing them into the overhead compartments.

******************************************************************************

Scott is in the backseat of his dads car tapping away on his phone which is completely, legally parked.

“Derek says hey,” he says, he doesn’t look up still tapping away, “and Deaton wants to talk to you about,” his forehead crinkles, “something, I can’t remember what.”

“You could have at least cracked a window, look his brain has swollen and he’ll probably start bleeding from his eyes and ears soon.”

“I left it running with the air conditioner going, and he has opposable thumbs, he could have rolled down a window,” his father shrugs and gives him the ‘your best friend is an idiot’ look.

******************************************************************************

Deaton stands there, arms crossed over his chest and eyes narrowed.

“Jesus, was there homework I forgot to do?” Stiles mutters, he rubs a hand over his head. He looks over at where Derek and Peter are kind of holding the wall up. Chris Argent is in the doorway looking for all the world like he wants to be somewhere, _anywhere_ else.

“What were you thinking?” Deaton finally says, he shakes his head.

“Okay, going to need a bit more information than that,” Stiles says.

“You convened a coven a white witches,” Chris says, his voice has a tired, strained quality to it. Like he’s not been getting any sleep and possibly also arguing with people in a loud voice.

“I did not, I asked some white witches to help do a cleansing on a cursed dagger that I found in a museum in Helsinki,” Stiles says. “It was a coven for like four minutes, which is how long it took to do the cleansing and verify that it worked.”

Deaton sighs. “And it took about two for word to travel that a stable coven of nine had convened. Do you know what kind of danger you’ve put yourself and the others in?”

Stiles thinks of Lauren and Norman both dead.

“Yeah, I kind of do, two of them are dead,” Stiles says finally, quietly. Chris comes in then, closing the door behind him. Derek straightens and Peter’s eyes narrow.

“Dead?” Deaton asks.

“Murdered, found in their apartments,” he rubs a hand over his face. “A couple weeks ago, the others all went to ground, I don’t know where they are.”

“So the coven is broken,” Peter says.

“They need to find two white witches of equal power to replace them and the coven would be whole again,” Deaton says. “Do you know of two witches that could replace them?” he asks, he looks directly at Stiles and he thinks of the list of witches that he’d reviewed prior to selecting the ones he had.

There’s about fifteen names that he can think of and that’s just off the top of his head.

“Which is why I’m fielding phone calls from Hunters wanting to request permission to come into my territory,” Chris says. Peter raises an eyebrow at him.

“For the wolves and other supernatural creatures this might be Hale Packland, but for the Hunters this is an Argent hold and we don’t allow interlopers,” he looks over at Stiles, “I can’t hold them off for very long, eventually I’m going to _have_ to allow one in. If only to answer the inquiry as to whether or not I’ve lost my mind and granted sanctuary to a coven of white witch’s.”

“Well it’s just me,” Stiles says. “And my dad, so unless we suddenly count as nine witches I think we’re okay.”

It doesn’t stop the feeling of foreboding or the flash of memory and he really wishes that the Clint was here and with him the Avengers.

At least then he wouldn’t have the horrible, sinking suspicion that the vision that he’d seen was in the process of playing out at this exact moment in time.

******************************************************************************

He eats lunch with Derek, there’s little in the way of conversation and that’s mostly because he’s shoving food in his mouth because airplane food doesn’t actually count as real food and Derek doesn’t talk unless asked a direct question that he can then respond to in monosyllables.

“So where’s your boyfriend?” Derek asks, he leans back in the booth, arms splayed out.

“Asgard,” Stiles says around a mouthful of burger. Derek doesn’t say anything just kind of blinks at him so Stiles finishes chewing, swallows because his mom raised him better than that, mostly. “You were expecting me to tell you we broke up.”

Derek takes a sip of his water.

“You should have brought him with you,” he says finally, his back is ramrod straight as he leans forward, elbows planting themselves on the tables edge.

“Why?” Stiles is sure this is a pack thing that he’s missing. Derek doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t look at Stiles and it takes about twenty-seven seconds for Stiles to make the connections and then he barks a laugh. “Oh my god, did you want to ask him intentions? Because dude I’m pretty sure my dad and Agent Coulson and possibly even Steve already _did_ that.”

“You are pack,” Derek says slowly, “that makes him pack by extension, we need to be able to trust that he’s not using you to infiltrate the pack.”

“Okay, besides the fact that I think I have way better people judging skills than that…”

“Courtney,” Derek coughs and Stiles narrows his eyes at him because that’s a Scott trick.

“That was different,” Stiles says and Derek raises an eyebrow at him.

“It was,” Stiles insists. Courtney had been a girl that he’d kind of gone out with a handful of times in his senior year; she’d ended up losing her shit and trying to kill Erica. Which had subsequently revealed the fact that she was a Hunter-in-training, like Allison, except her family was more in line with the Kate Argent school of Hunting and not Chris’ version.

******************************************************************************

Crawford calls as Derek’s taking him back to his jeep. Peter is leaning against the side of the building, waiting when they pull into the parking lot.

“He’s riding back to the house with me,” Derek says, “and I know he kind of freaks you out still.”

“Stop listening to my heartbeat,” Stiles mutters as he pulls his cell phone out of his coat pocket.

“Hey Crawford, what’s up?”

There’s silence on the other end.

“Crawford?” he asks, his stomach starts rolling, the cheeseburger that had been sitting happily there kind of not anymore.

“They found Micheline’s body,” Crawford says, his voice is soft, it still sounds like he’s shouting it from the rooftops the way that it echoes in Stiles’ head.

“What… how…” he leans forward, free arm wrapping around his stomach as he tries to concentrate on breathing and not having a panic attack in Derek’s car with Derek and Peter as witnesses.

“The locals are calling it a murder suicide, the boyfriend’s dead as well,” Crawford says, his voice sounds strained.

“But SHIELD thinks differently,” Stiles asks. This isn’t happening, isn’t, he can’t… he feels a warm, heavy hand against the back of his neck and it startles him slight. He glances to the left, Derek has rolled his window down and there’s something that could probably be called worry on his face; Peter is leaning down, one hand braced on the car.

They’re both staring at him and he turns his head.

“There was a picture found at the scene, SHIELD found it before the locals did because they’ve been keeping an eye on all the witches that were at the cleansing and it was a picture of all of you; Norman, Lauren and Micheline were all X’ed out, the rest of you…”

“Okay,” Stiles breathes, slowly. “Okay.”

“Agent Coulson is trying to call the Avengers back and Director Fury wants to send agents to you in the interim as a protection detail but thoughts are your pack will likely freak out about it.”

“Yeah, probably,” Stiles rubs his hand over his face. “Why don’t you come, bring the stuff we were working on, see if SHIELD will bring you on one of their jets.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to Agent Coulson and I’ll be there sometime tomorrow,” Crawford says. “Director Fury said something about reminding you to make sure that you have your ear piece in.”

“I’ll put it in; though I’m pretty sure I’m totally out of range at the moment.”

******************************************************************************


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. *runs and hides*

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 21/?**

Crawford arrives in a rental car that looks like he went off-roading and two bags filled with books and papers.

“Did you bring _any_ clothes?” Stiles asks as he watches him unload the contents of his luggage onto his dads dining room table.

“Carry-on bag,” Crawford looks up at him, “you do have a washer and dryer, right?”

“No, I’m going to make you go to the nearest stream and beat your clothes against rocks,” Stiles rolls his eyes. He picks up a book on the table, then another.

“This doesn’t look what we were working on when I left,” he says.

Crawford winces and doesn’t make eye contact with him.

“After they found Micheline’s body Agent Coulson shifted our focus from the journals on A’kresh, to journals and papers focusing on witch hunting.”

Stiles sighs, they’re going to wrap him up in bubble wrap and tissue paper and shove him into the nearest locked room when this is all over. He can feel it in his bone.

If even _remnants_ of his vision come true… but no, that’s why he’s brought Crawford here. He didn’t _see_ Crawford, so the fact that Crawford is here, that something didn’t stop Crawford from coming…

Well hopefully that means that whatever is going on right now isn’t going to end up the way his vision ended up.

******************************************************************************

“So where are we supposed to eat?” his dad asks when he comes in and sees the books and papers strewn out over the dining room table.

“We can set table trays up in the living room,” Stiles murmurs absently, he’s found a passage, all in English documenting a hunter (Anthony, last name not first) in 1847 and his search for witches. There doesn’t seem to be any underlying reason for his hunt, just that it’s his purpose and he doesn’t fail.

He’s only about 75 pages in and he’s already killed seven witches. He actually states in a rambling two page entry about how two of the witches were white but how he killed them anyway because all it takes is one bad decision and all witches go if not gray then dark.

There are also ramblings on god and his service to god and how god will make sure he’s not punished for killing white witches.

“I think I need to talk to Mr. Argent about their screening process for Hunters,” Stiles says.

“Some of them not dealing with a full bucket of screws?” his dad asks, he’s thumbing through a journal that Crawford had left open on the table.

“Some of them have decided to use those screws as torture implements instead of, you know, sanity.”

His father huffs a laugh, “what are you actually looking for?” he asks. He leans against the back of Stiles’ chair.

“Witches, and some mention of covens,” Crawford says. “It seems to be…” he trails off when he looks up and sees Stiles’ wide eyes, mouthing no, over and over again. “It’s just interesting,” he finishes. It sounds kind of lame even to Stiles’ ears.

He knows that his father, who has spent years dedicated to ferreting the truth out of Stiles and his tall tales, isn’t going to buy it.

“What do you want to know about covens?” he asks, he leans over Stiles’ shoulder and picks up a book, glances at the spine, makes a face and puts it back down.

“Um, anything,” Stiles says, he’s kind of surprised that his dads’ not pushing Crawford. Crawford’s got a gooey center; he’d cave if his dad pushed even just a little bit.

“Coven’s don’t really exist anymore,” his dad says, he’s got his lecture voice on.

“I thought covens didn’t exist _at all_ ,” Crawford says, “isn’t that what one of the wolves said?”

“There hasn’t been a real, active, _stable_ coven since the late 1700’s,” his dad rubs a hand over his mouth. “And all the stable ones have been white; dark and gray witches don’t tend to get along with each other long enough to form the bonds of a stable one.”

“Because there’s a transfer of power,” Stiles says softly. He remembers being in the circle with the others, the way everyone’s power kind of moved on to the next person, then the next, linking them all together.

“Exactly,” his father looks proud of him for sussing it out, Stiles feels a tiny bit of shame for not actually telling his dad that he was part of a cleansing and thus has some firsthand knowledge.

“And dark witches, even gray witches, they hoard their power. They definitely don’t enter into anything that means that someone else would be able to access it,” his dad says, he stacks a few books and clears a spot to sit down.

“I wish your nana was here, she was a fount of information when it came to covens,” his dad steeples his hand.

“Well unless you know a resurrection spell that doesn’t end with someone going gray…” Stiles shakes his head, his father laughs a little.

“Your books,” he waves a hand at the stacks of them on the table. “They’re not going to tell you anything about covens, or witches, or well anything supernatural.”

Stiles looks at him in askance, they’ve gleaned quite a bit of information from the books.

“They’re all written by Hunters, or by people just generally associated with whatever element of the supernatural they’ve declared their specialty. They don’t know the ins and outs of the actual community, just what the community allows to be shown to outsiders.”

“Okay,” Stiles says slowly, he shuts the book that he’d been going through and stares at his father, his father in turn doesn’t meet his eyes.

“There’s a lot of white witches,” Crawford says, “why isn’t there a coven?”

His father rubs a hand over his mouth, Stiles narrows his eyes, he looks pale.

“Because every time one is formed they get picked off by hunters within days of forming. Hunters don’t like or trust in anything that has more power than they can actively control. A coven of witches, a stable one is a council of power to others. Their theory, from what I remember is that even white witches are able to be tempted and that it is very easy to turn a white witch gray or black under the right circumstances and they were doing the world a favor by not allowing one into existence. The last coven that was stable, stayed white and also managed to stay alive for any considerable length of time was in 1713. And they were all murdered.”

******************************************************************************

“I don’t like this,” Crawford says, Stiles has put his father to bed with a wet washcloth over his forehead and two Excedrin.

“What’s not to like?” Stiles asks, he shrugs into his jacket. “It’s fine, I just want to ask Mr. Argent a few questions.”

Crawford sighs, then holds out his hand. “Don’t forget to put your comm. in.”

Stiles sighs this time, though he takes the comm. from Crawford’s hand. “We’re not in range, why…?”

“Agent Coulson said comms in. Agent Coulson says comms in, I put my comm. in and I force you to do the same.”

Crawford crosses his arms over his chest and glares, like Stiles is trying to make his life difficult or something.

“Fine, fine,” he puts the comm. in and feels just a little bit like an idiot.

******************************************************************************

He loves his jeep; he misses her when he’s in the city though he knows he would have killed people several times over if he had to actually drive in the city. Plus he spends 98% of his time on the Helicarrier, he’d have to leave her in a parking garage somewhere and that’s just not fair to her.

But when he’s in Beacon Hills he can drive her and cajole her into continuing to run and ‘don’t you even think about dying out here young lady’.

He’s not looking forward to this conversation with Argent, Allison might be a member of the pack by virtue of her relationship (on and off again as it might be) with Scott. But her dads’ ties to the pack are definitely not as tight; he sides with them mostly because they don’t harm anyone, they defend their territory and they protect as needed.

He rings the doorbell and then taps on the door. He doesn’t see Allison’s car but that’s her dads’ peaking around the corner of the garage.

Chris opens the door and he looks, there’s a weird expression on his face that Stiles would maybe call panic, with a hint of fear. But Chris Argent hadn’t shown panic or fear when they were staring down Peter when he was the crazy, murderous Alpha, or when they were facing down his father and Jackson still in his Kanima form, or even when they faced down the Alpha Pack and sent the ones that survived scurrying away with their tales between their legs.

“You can’t be here,” he says, there’s a tone of urgency in his voice and he doesn’t open the door to grudgingly let Stiles in, instead he steps out on the porch and takes Stiles firmly by the arm and starts propelling him towards his jeep.

“I wanted to ask you about…” he starts to say, Chris squeezes his arm and there’s the distinctive click of a safety being turned off and he stops, Chris stops.

He would like to say his heart stops but it’s beating frantically as he turns slowly, Chris still has a grip on his arm and he’s going to leave a bruise, he’s sure of this.

“Harrison don’t do this,” Chris says, he’s tugging on Stiles’ arm, pulling him behind him and Stiles would pitch his normal bitchfest but there’s another guy with a gun, a girl with a gun and there’s just a _lot_ of people with guns and they’re all pointed at them and…

Having Crawford here was supposed to _stop_ this. It had been the whole reason that he told Crawford to come, Crawford hadn’t been in the vision, if Crawford showed then it wasn’t time for him and his dad to be tied up and bleeding, if Crawford didn’t show then he took his dad and ran.

“Chris, Chris, Chris,” the one that Chris must have noticed first off says. He’s an older gentleman, gray, receding hair. He looks like a grandpa but then Gerard had looked like a grandpa and he’d cut werewolves in half and beat Stiles up in front of Erica and Boyd.

“He’s just a kid,” Chris says, he sounds desperate. “He’s a kid and a friend of my daughters and _don’t do this_.”

“I notice you didn’t say, and he’s a witch,” Harrison says, he makes a motion with his head and two guys with guns come forward and physically shift Chris out from in front of him.

He stands there and Stiles shifts on his feet, his flight and fight reflex is screaming at him to _run. Run like werewolves and vampires and demons from hell are chasing you_!

“And you must be our little witch,” he looks him up and down, grips his face in his hands and twists his head back and forth.

“Are you going to check my teeth next? I’m not some breeding stud,” _asshole_ , is not said but firmly implied.

“As if I would breed your impure bloodline,” Harrison sneers. “Take them inside, put the boy in the cellar while Chris and I have a little chat.”

Stiles’ arms get gripped by two goons with guns and he’s all but dragged toward the front door, a glance to the right shows Chris putting up a struggle as two do the same to him.

He would struggle but at the moment is mind is a little too busy trying to come up with a way out.

Any way out that doesn’t turn into a direct replica of his vision. He’s not ready for that. Not yet, he’s not had enough time.

He’s not had enough time with Clint or with his dad now that the air is clean and clear between them.

He’s not had enough time.

******************************************************************************


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, a couple of things:
> 
> 1\. This chapter and the next (and possibly one more after) will be multiple POV's.
> 
> 2\. I'm thrilled that you guys like Crawford enough to be worried that I'm going to off him. :D
> 
> 3\. Chris Argent is a good guy. Take that as you will.

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 22/?**

Crawford makes the call at 14:45; he’s sitting at the table still sifting through books that apparently don’t actually tell them anything they need to know.

He wonders if Stiles knew that the books didn’t contain any actual information they could use and decides he must have. Stiles has been doing this a lot longer than Crawford has, living a life surrounded by the supernatural even if he’s only just realized that he’s directly part of it.

He can hear the Sheriff moving around upstairs. It’s the Sheriff moving around then the rapid fire knocking at the front door that has Crawford realizing exactly how _long_ it’s been since Stiles left to go to the Argents.

He’s on his feet moving to the front door; he can hear the Sheriff moving quickly down the stairs. He whips the door open and its Allison Argent standing there, she looks red faced, is definitely out of breath.

“Allison?” he hears the Sheriff say from behind him.

“Hunters at the house,” she says, more breath than voice. He wonders if she ran the entire way.

“Stiles went to your house,” Crawford says, there’s a thin thread of alarm in his voice, he can hear it. Hawkeye is going to _murder_ him. “He wanted to talk to your dad.”

Allison closes her eyes and when she looks like she’s going to go down he grabs her arm and drags her inside the house, handing her off to the Sheriff even while he’s digging for his phone and doing a cursory check outside for anyone watching the house.

Agent Coulson’s number had been programmed in as he’d been leaving, ‘ _because Stiles doesn’t call when he needs things, and I have feeling he’s going to need things_ ’.

It’s picked up on the first ring and Crawford wonders if they’d been expecting this call, if SHIELD had already routed agents to them to help in whatever the hell is going on.

“Crawford?” Agent Coulson’s voice is soothing in the way that he sounds like he’s completely ready to fuck some shit up.

It’s all in the inflection of his voice.

“Sir, I think we might have a problem.”

******************************************************************************

Allison calls Scott, who will call everyone else, her mind is reeling. She is scared for her father who she’d left at the house, and terrified for Stiles who apparently had gone there and no one had heard from either one of them.

Her house phone keeps ringing and ringing, the answering machine not even picking up which means that the phones have probably been pulled from the walls.

Stiles’ phone goes directly to voice mail, whether turned off by his hand or someone else they can’t tell.

“They’re witch Hunters,” she says, she sips at the tea the Sheriff had made then handed to her with shaking hands. Crawford still has his phone pressed to his ear talking to SHIELD.

She can see a table piled high with books and papers and she rubs a hand over her forehead.

“Allison,” she hears shouted and then a door banging against a wall and the Sheriff sighs a sigh of long-suffering ‘ _Scott, you’re patching the wall again since you can’t open doors like a normal werewolf_ ’.

“I’m okay,” she says, Scott’s hands are running over her face, her shoulders, her hair. He sniffs her neck and she doesn’t deck him as she normally does when he gets like this.

“I’m okay,” she says again and she pushes him away. “There’s witch Hunters at my house.”

“We know,” Derek says, he’s followed Scott into the house at a more sedate pace, his betas are following at his heels and they all look mightily pissed off. “Peter saw them take Stiles and your father into the house.”

“And you didn’t do anything?!” the Sheriff snarls at Peter, Peter raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest.

“They had guns and though I’m sure they hunt only witches, I’m also sure that they pack something in their guns that will damage any other element they might come across.”

“SHIELD’s coming,” Crawford says, he’s clenching his phone in his hand. “Agent Coulson said they’re working on remote activating Stiles’ comm. unit.”

“They can do that?” Danny sounds intrigued.

“It’s a SHIELD comm. designed by Tony Stark, they’ve requested Jarvis work on activating it since Mr. Stark is still on Asgard with the Avengers,” Crawford says it so matter-of-factly, like it’s nothing to be name dropping SHIELD and Tony Stark and the Avengers and Asgard.

Allison rubs at her eyes, and prays that her dad and Stiles are okay. That they remain okay.

Because she has a feeling that if the Avengers return and Stiles isn’t okay, that they’ll level this town that is her home.

If SHIELD hasn’t already done so.

******************************************************************************

They take his phone but leave his comm. in, they obviously think it’s a Bluetooth and he’s not going to be the one to dissuade them of that notion. They probably think it’s funny to leave it in when they take his cell, knowing that he can’t use it to call for help.

It would be a stupid move on their part, except the Helicarrier is completely out of range and even if he had both hands and a user manual he probably couldn’t figure out how to make the signal bounce far enough that a SHIELD satellite would pick it up.

They chain him to a wall and punch him a couple of times, but that’s all par for the course and kind of expected when you get taken by the bad guys.

They leave him there, alone and he sags against the wall and breathes. He doesn’t think because things are going to happen how things are to happen when they’re going to happen.

He’s not sure how long he’s been chain to a wall breathing when they bring Chris down. He’s bloody and battered, he’s got one arm wrapped around his chest and he looks like complete hell. They chain him to the wall opposite him and pat him on the head condescendingly.

“So we need to go get things ready for a witch pyre,” Harrison says, he has his hands shoved into his pockets. “Don’t you boys go anywhere,” he laughs like he made a joke and Stiles closes his eyes and goes back to breathing.

There are footsteps on the stairs and then the sound of a door closing, a lock being secured.

“Are you okay?” Chris asks.

“Me? Well I’m just peachy, because you know it’s not a trip home to Beacon Hills if I don’t get to fight a big bad,” Chris snorts and Stiles takes a brief break from his breathing to grin.

“Allison went to get help as soon as we realized that they were coming.”

“You think she actually got away?”

“Well they haven’t dragged her back kicking and screaming yet, so, yeah. I think she got away.”

Stiles leans his head back against the wall. Stares at the ceiling.

“It’s going to be okay,” Chris says, like he thinks the Stiles needs the reassurance. This time it’s Stiles that snorts a laugh. Because he knows better, he knows how this ends.

“We’re all going to die,” he says. It’s the first time he’s said the words out loud.

“Wow, okay, so you’re looking at this from a glass half-empty perspective, which is interesting because I kind of thought you were a glass half-full kind of kid but whatever.”

“I’m looking at this from a, I’ve already seen this happen, I know how it ends perspective.”

Chris looks at him, eyes narrowed.

“Did you,” he looks around the room, peers up the stairs like he can tell if someone is loitering there directly out of their line of sight waiting for them to say something to incriminate themselves. “Did you have a vision?”

Stiles rolls his neck on his shoulders, he’s got a cramp and he’s pretty sure if he yells out a complaint or something they’ll just come down and laugh and point.

“I told you that I found a dagger in a museum in Helsinki.”

“The dagger that started this entire mess, yes I remember the conversation.”

“The dagger wasn’t why we were there,” he rotates his shoulders. “We were looking for an Asgardian artifact.”

“Should you be telling me this?”

“Probably not,” Stiles laughs a little, harshly, bitterly. “But it’s not on earth anymore so it’s not like anyone else can get their hands on it.”

“You saw something, whatever this thing was, you saw something.”

“I saw…” he takes a deep breath, releases it. “I saw my dad and I on the ground, on our knees bleeding, Derek in front of us, trying to protect us,” he says it quietly.

“What about the rest of us?”

“Dead, unconscious, I don’t know, the only people that I saw clearly were myself, my dad and Derek,” he leans his head back, stares at the ceiling some more. “I brought Crawford here because… because I didn’t _see_ him and I thought, if he’s _here_ then whatever’s going on _now_ isn’t connected to that vision… but Crawford is here and this certainly feels like a build up to my dad and I being on our knees and…”

“And what? Did you see your deaths; did you see anyone moving forward to strike that killing blow?”

“It’s a _vision_ , I know how visions work. Fixed moment’s blah, blah, blah. I didn’t need to see the blood or guts to know how the story ends; the lead up pretty much told the whole story.”

“But it didn’t, because you don’t really _know_ how the story ends, you got the climactic moment _before_ the end, but you didn’t get to the _end_. You didn’t see the Avengers or SHIELD swoop in with Crawford leading the way, you didn’t see the pack surging up to put themselves between you and whatever danger you were facing. You didn’t see the _end_ , so how about we not kill us all off just yet, okay?”

Stiles looks at him, just looks and allows himself to feel just a little bit of hope. Crawford is at home with his dad, Crawford with his cell phone and probably a direct line to Agent Coulson. And Allison who probably ran the whole way to either his dad or the pack; someone who could help regardless.

His dad will still end up on his knees beside him, Derek will still end up standing between them and Harrison and whatever weapons Harrison wields, but maybe, _maybe_ they won’t die at the end of it all.

******************************************************************************

Isaac likes Stiles’ dad. He always has. The _pack_ always has.

Except for Derek, but Isaac thinks that Derek’s issues with the Sheriff stem more from other things that are probably left unspoken considering Stiles has a boyfriend that could probably kill them all and Derek is, well _Derek_.

The Sheriff is a good man, honest and true. The fact that he’s not entirely human is almost icing on the cake. Because it ties him to them in a way that just being Stiles’ dad couldn’t.

So when the Sheriff says, “I need to go to the station,” in a voice that says he’s going and he’s walking out the door in fifteen seconds with or without a member of the pack with him, Isaac offers to go with him.

“Take your phone,” Derek says and Isaac holds it up so that Derek can see it, he’s not Scott so Derek doesn’t ask him to verify that it’s charged. Derek nods once, which indicates that they can go and the Sheriff rolls his eyes as the remaining members of the pack turn their attention back to Crawford.

Crawford has his phone pressed to his ear and his back to them like it’ll give him any measure of privacy in a room full of werewolves.

They don’t say anything but they’re all aware that the Agent Coulson is on the other end; SHIELD hasn’t been able to make contact with the Avengers on Asgard, but they have SHIELD teams on the way and eventually Crawford will have to leave to go meet.

Isaac pulls the door closed behind him, waiting for a moment until he hears the lock click into place.

“What do you need from the station?” Isaac asks, the Sheriff narrows his eyes at him then climbs into the car.

“Some papers, our family’s book,” the Sheriff says it all nonchalantly, like the fact that he and Stiles being outed as witches means next to nothing.

“Why don’t you keep that stuff at the house?” Isaac asks, he looks out the window at the trees going boy, kid on a bike, no soldiers in the streets or Hunters with guns.

Not yet anyway.

“You’ve met my son, right? I keep that stuff in the house Stiles would have had it sniffed out in 30 minutes or less, he’s like a bloodhound, when there’s something you don’t want found he’ll have its location pinpointed within seven inches. Christmas was always an exercise in futility.”

“Stiles was never one of those kids that believed in Santa, was he?”

“Not since he was seven,” the Sheriff laughs a little, “he faked it really well, especially when Scott came along.”

The Sheriff pulls his car into his designated spot, climbs out with keys in hand. The station is empty, which strikes Isaac as odd but the Sheriff doesn’t seem concerned so he doesn’t dwell on it.

“Give me a few minutes, okay?” the Sheriff asks, Isaac shrugs and goes to look at some of the mug shots on the wall.

He hears the Sheriff close the door to his office and he kind of mills around, hands shoved into his pockets. He glances at the clock on the wall and then back at the Sheriff’s closed door, another couple of minutes unless he comes out before then. He can’t think what the Sheriff could be doing in there except maybe having a breakdown and they don’t really have time for anyone to have a breakdown.

Not until Stiles is safe, then they can double up on the panic attacks and nightmares.

He stares at the Sheriff’s door and he hears nothing, no movement, nothing from the other side. He walks slowly to it even as he takes his cell out of his pocket.

“Sheriff, sir, we should really be getting back to the house,” he taps on the door, lightly so as to not draw unnecessary attention, but loudly enough that the Sheriff should be able to hear him.

“Sheriff?” his hand goes to the door knob and it doesn’t turn, locked as it must be from the inside. He glances around, still empty and twists the knob and pushes the door in.

Derek’s handy with a hammer, he’ll fix it later.

“Oh fuck,” he says when he sees the empty office. He’s already got the phone to his ear and is calling Derek as he rounds the desk and peers out the window.

No sign of anything, the Sheriff has about ten minute’s head start and he’s _such_ an idiot. He’s getting in trouble for this, he’s sure.

“What’s wrong?” Derek answers the phone, no niceties or greetings, just straight to the point.

“The Sheriff is gone,” Isaac says, Derek growls on the other end and Isaac’s shoulders hunch up around his ear, a reflexive movement since his Alpha is pissed at him.

The Sheriff’s phone is sitting in the middle of his desk, post-it note with ‘Sorry’ scrawled in black sharpie across it.

“Don’t bother having Danny try and track his cell he left it on his desk,” Isaac says, which is odd enough but the fact that it’s sitting there, and not with the Sheriff, means that he wants them to have it.

He picks it up and thumbs it awake, there’s an open text that says simply ‘come alone’, there’s the little clip that indicates that a picture was sent along with the message, when he opens it there’s a picture of Stiles, bleeding and scowling at the person taking the picture.

“He got a text of a picture of Stiles that says come alone.”

Derek growls again. “Get back to the house, SHIELD’s on its way and we need to figure out how to get them into town without the Hunters knowing they’re coming into town.”

******************************************************************************


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. *runs and hides*

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 23/?**

They convene at the vet’s office; Deaton has that smug look on his face that Derek really just despises.

Of course the smug look on Deaton’s face is nothing compared to the ones gracing Morell’s or Peter’s faces. It’s very frustrating and makes him wonder if they think he should be a mind reader when it comes to Stiles.

If they should be looking smug at _anyone_ it should be at Scott who has been Stiles’ best friend for more years then all of them have known the two of them.

Allison has her arms crossed over her chest, pacing a little; when Peter’s not looking at him with that damned smirk his eyes follow her and if he wasn’t so worried that Stiles is being murdered while they stand here and _talk_ about what they need to do… Well Derek would wonder at that.

Would wonder why Peter was even anywhere near the Argent’s when last Derek had checked he still kind of blamed the whole family for Kate being a psychotic bitch.

Of course Peter had mentioned once or twice or a hundred times that he and Chris had been friends of a sort at one point. He’d just thought that the friendship hadn’t managed to survive Kate’s fire.

They’ve lost Stiles, they’ve lost the Sheriff, they’ve lost Chris in the crossfire.

“We should be doing something,” he mutters.

“Like what?” Boyd asks, he leans against the wall next to Derek.

“I don’t know, just…” he waves a hand in the air and feels like Stiles momentarily, it burns. “Standing around here, waiting? We should be _doing_ something.”

“It wouldn’t benefit any of us to go running in blind,” Deaton says, he still has a knowing smirk on his face, Derek buries the need to punch him in his smirking face under the need to save Stiles. First things first.

“Plus it would help to know what we’re running into,” comes a voice from the door. Derek blinks because it’s Agent Coulson there in a flannel shirt and jeans, looking as un-Agent like as he possibly can.

Agent Hill from the carrier skirts around him, also dressed as commonly as possibly. It’s almost disconcerting.

“The Sheriff mentioned something about the last coven being murdered?” Agent Coulson says, he looks at all of them but Derek is almost positive this is continuing a conversation that he’d already been having since Crawford answers.

“Almost 200 years ago,” Crawford nods. “If he was here…”

“Well he’s not, so we’ll just have to muddle through,” Agent Coulson says.

“And almost 200 years isn’t _exactly_ correct,” Deaton says, he leans against a corner of his desk.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s 200 years ago tomorrow,” Morell says. She’s pale all of a sudden, biting her lips, her eyes wide. “Fuck, I didn’t even put it together.”

“Anniversaries are important, some of them more celebrated than others. 200 years ago tomorrow the last white coven, the Whites of Kanash were all murdered, dead by execution. If they’re going to do something with Stiles and the Sheriff it’ll be tomorrow,” Deaton says.

“So we’ve got less than 24 hours to pull some sort of rescue together,” Derek nods, they’ve done more with less time. They can do this.

“Apparently we do have some guidelines that need to be adhered to,” Agent Coulson says.

Derek looks at him, narrows his eyes.

“When Stiles made his verification of the Asgardian artifact in Helsinki he did so by having a vision,” Agent Coulson starts.

“Which he didn’t _tell_ anyone about,” Crawford mutters under his breath.

“And from what we’ve managed to gather from his conversations with your father,” he nods at Allison.

“You activated his comm.,” Danny says, there’s an underlying tone of wonder in his voice.

“One way communication,” Agent Hill says. “We can hear him he can’t hear us. But it’s given us enough to figure out what we need to do in order to try and keep everyone alive.”

******************************************************************************

They’ve brought SHIELD agents in, snuck them in through roads no longer used and having Crawford and Isaac drive the Sheriff’s car (he’ll yell later, Scott’s assures them of this) to pick up Agent Coulson and Agent Hill at the landing strip.

There is still no word from the Avengers, all attempts to communicate with them have been met with silence; an eerie, dead silence that is not normal.

Crawford would worry, mostly he _wishes_ he had the _energy_ to worry, but he doesn’t.

If they haven’t saved Stiles by the time that Hawkeye returns they’re all dead by exploding arrow anyway.

******************************************************************************

Erica finds the pyre by accident, they’ve been running the perimeters of areas that Deaton and Morell had marked as being prime locations for one and she just sort of stumbles upon it.

Of course then she backs away just as quickly because the energy of the place makes her skin crawl and she runs a hand over her head because it feels like her hair is standing on end.

She fumbles for her cell phone and hides within the tree line, rolling her shoulders and periodically looking behind her because it feels like she’s being watched and nothing good can come from that.

“Yeah,” Derek says and his voice sounds gruff and normal and maybe eventually they’ll teach him to say ‘hello’ like a normal person when picking it up.

“I found the pyre,” she says in a whisper, she rubs a hand against the rough bark of the tree next to her, “there’s some sort of… the area feels weird, creepy, I think the Hunters might have had a witch do something to it.”

There’s muffled talking on the other end, she waits and notices movement as a Hunter comes out of the woods across from her. She hides herself more firmly behind the tree and she doesn’t think he saw her as he’s not looking around wondering where she’d gone. He seems to be adjusting his pants so he probably went for some private time in the woods.

“There’s a Hunter here,” she breathes, her eyes are locked on him and she could take him, there’s just one.

“Come back here,” Derek says.

“I can take him,” Erica murmurs, she rolls her shoulders and rocks on her heels.

“No,” Derek orders, voice going hard and stiff. “ _Come back here, now_.”

Her shoulders hunch even though she knows she’s done nothing wrong, Derek’s nerves are strung tight, one wrong move, one more loss and they’ll probably have a Derek in crazy Alpha!Peter mode to contend with.

“I’m on my way.”

******************************************************************************

“There’s witches in town,” Deaton says. Peter looks up in surprise, he would have thought with everything that was happening that a witch, white or otherwise wouldn’t step foot into Beacon Hills until it was resolved.

“Why would they?” he starts to ask and Deaton shakes his head.

“I just got a courtesy notification that witches were in town. Seven of them to be exact.”

“That’s,” Peter purses his lips together. “That’s a really specific number, that’s two shy of…”

“An actual coven, yes, I’m aware,” Deaton has a look on his face, if Peter had to catalog it as anything he would say that it was a considering look, with maybe a side of hopeful.

“I wonder,” he muses, mostly to himself.

“Five of them are members of the coven that Stiles put together to cleanse the dagger,” Crawford says, he’s holding a table in one hand, scrolling across screens, being mostly invisible. Peter keeps forgetting that he’s sitting there as silent as he’s being. With the way that Deaton startles Peter imagines he’d forgotten that Crawford was in the room as well.

“And the other two?” Peter asks.

“I imagine they’re replacing the two witches that were killed first, Norman and Lauren,” Crawford says absently, his eyes are tracking something across the screen, brow furrowing as he does so.

“And what about the last?” Peter asks softly. “Who are they planning to replace her, a coven is a coven with eight, but a _stable_ coven is nine and they appear to be one shy.”

Crawford looks up at him, blinks and shakes his head a little.

“Give me a name, quickly, don’t think, you must have thought of this, like Stiles thought of this. Who is the last member of this coven that isn’t.”

Crawford licks his lips, “his father.”

******************************************************************************

His wrists ache, his head is pounding and he’s gotten one bathroom break. Hands cuffed in front of him and douchebag Hunter with a gun behind him and he’d managed to go but only because otherwise he thought either his bladder would explode or he’d just wet himself.

He’d not asked again, he’ll just hold it until he dies or can figure out how to get himself out of this.

He sighs heavily, across the room Chris is making a noise as he apparently tries to shift into a more comfortable position and his probably broken ribs make themselves known.

“You know what I could go for?” he asks, Chris makes a noise that he takes as ‘what?’ though he doesn’t speak.

“A double cheeseburger and curly fries,” he leans his head back against the wall, closes his eyes and smiles a little. His mouth waters and his stomach makes a low rumbling ‘hell yeah’ noise.

“Let’s not talk about food,” Chris says. “I’m so hungry I’d probably eat a double cheeseburger and curly fries right alongside you.”

The door bangs open at the top of the stores and Harrison stomps down them, loudly like he’s trying to make sure they have plenty of warning that he’s coming and so they can hide the porn and booze and board games that they’ve obviously been indulging in while chained to walls in dark, damp cellar.

“So,” Harrison says. He stands in the middle of the floor, spinning slowly so he can look at each of them. He’s got goons with him, one that Stiles can barely make out at the top of the stairs and two more that at the bottom of the stairs with guns in their hands.

“You’re not going to monologue are you?” Stiles bangs his head a little, mostly to distract himself from the prickles of unease making their way up and down his spine. “Because that’s just trite and…”

Harrison rounds on him, hand wrapping around his jaw tightly, Stiles jerks his head but Harrison holds fast.

“You’ve got a smart mouth,” Harrison snarls, “It’ll be my pleasure to burn it out of you.”

“Harrison,” Chris starts.

“Chris, we no longer have need of your presence,” Harrison says, he says it softly, matter-of-factly. He doesn’t let go of Stiles and he smirks at him as he jerks his heads at goons.

The gun shot is loud, it echoes through the cellar and Harrison’s body might be partially blocking his view but he can still clearly see Chris slump against the wall and he might still have a grip on his jaw but he still manages to scream.

******************************************************************************


	24. Chapter 24

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 24/?**

They were friends with the wolves when he was a kid, he can vividly remember running through the woods with Peter and his siblings, the wolves tumbling in and out of their wolf forms at will.

As a child it had been exhilarating, fun and it was only after Kate was born that Gerard put a stop to that.

Put a stop to a lot of things that had been their norm; there had been a treaty in place since way before Chris was born, signed in blood by the Argent Hunters and Hale Wolves and while Gerard hadn’t done anything to outright _break_ the treaty (not then anyway, that would come later) he certainly hadn’t done anything to foster goodwill with the wolves.

Running in the forest with Peter and his brothers and sisters stopped, training began full force and the only time he got to see the members of the Hale pack that were his age was in school.

It has taken _years_ to rebuild even the smallest measure of the trust that had existed once between them. They’d been friends once and after things settled pretty much the only thing that Chris could hope for was that they could renegotiate a new treaty.

Instead Derek, who obviously didn’t like doing things in a small way, drew them into the pack. Though Chris would probably have to admit that he didn’t necessarily fight it.

Allison was going to be with Scott, eventually anyway. And there’s only Allison and him, along with Hunters that don’t even bear the Argent name that he considers his.

He doesn’t wonder where they are, if they were smart they scattered like Allison did. If they weren’t they aligned themselves with Harrison and his Hunters.

He’s been shot before; you can’t be a Hunter and not get injured in some way. When they were training; before they were married or dating, while Chris was still burying feelings and thoughts that would have Gerard gutting him, Victoria had shot him by accident.

(She said it was an accident, their trainers called it friendly fire, he thinks she was tired of being ignored and shot him to get his attention.)

There’s hands on his chest, they hurt the way they’re pushing and pushing and he breathes shallowly, tries to raise his arms to make them stop, to curl into himself, and finds he can’t.

There’s a voice, low and fierce and it sounds familiar though he’s pretty sure he’s never heard it sound like this before.

“Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris,” repeated over and over again and the effort to open his eyes is almost more than he can manage, he barely sees Peter before they try to roll back in his head.

“No, no,” Peter says, “stay awake,” he says, he takes one hand off his chest and pulls on the chains, they don’t break, they were designed to hold werewolves after all.

“Tired,” Chris mutters, he sounds like a petulant Allison at three, determined to not go to bed but exhausted nonetheless.

Peter gives up tugging on the chains and touches his face, the tips of fingers drag down the curve of his jaw and they’re wet.

“Are you getting blood on me?” Chris asks, he closed his eyes and then promptly opens them again when Peter growls low in his chest.

“It’s your blood,” Peter says, like that makes it any better.

“I guess I should be thankful you’re not licking it off me,” Chris murmurs, he lets his head fall back against the wall.

“I only appreciate some good blood play when there’s sex involved, you know that,” Peter says in that tone of voice that always implies more is going on then is _actually_ going on. “And you don’t look like you’re up for anything more energetic than going to the hospital and having that wound closed up and possibly a transfusion.”

“Stiles,” Chris says. “Harrison took Stiles… somewhere.”

“We’re on it,” Peter says. “Or more like SHIELD is on it and the rest of us are just going along for the ride, I wonder if we get consultant fees for helping out or if we’ll have to invoice them?”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Agent Coulson has an aerial map that he got from somewhere laid out over a table in one of Deaton’s exam rooms.

“So Erica found the pyre here,” he points at a red circle in the middle of a large empty space. “It’s almost completely surrounded by trees which will make it easy to get people near, but also gives them an area in which to hide their own people.”

Derek crosses his arms over his chest, he doesn’t like this waiting, it makes his skin crawl to think of Harrison alone with Stiles. At least when Chris had been there…

Scott comes banging in a side door, all sad eyes and down turned mouth. Derek narrows his eyes at him. He’s supposed to be at the hospital.

“Allison wouldn’t let me stay,” he mutters defensively. “Peter said he’d stay and keep an eye on things, mom said she’d call if anything happened.”

“He’s okay?” Agent Coulson asks, he doesn’t look up from the map that and he has a black marker in his hand that he seems to be using to mark it up.

“He’s in surgery, they said the bullet went right through, but he bled a lot and…” Scott rubs at his face with his hands. He looks impossibly young and scared, it was one of the reasons why Derek wanted him at the hospital with Allison, at least that way he wouldn’t be there if they found Stiles being burned on the pyre.

“That’s good,” Agent Coulson says. “I’ve already put in a call so if they need better surgeons they’ll be made available.”

“Thanks,” Scott says.

“What are they x’s for?” Derek asks, that’s what Agent Coulson’s been doing with the marker, making little black x’s on the map.

“They’re us,” Agent Coulson says. “Do we know where the witches are?”

Deaton shakes his head. “I haven’t heard from them since they made the courtesy call telling me they were here.”

“So we don’t know what their purpose is here,” Agent Coulson says, he switches out colors and starts making red x’s next to the black one’s. There’s not as many of them and when he counts them up he realizes that it has to be his pack.

“No,” Deaton says.

“Well it’ll be hard to figure them into our plans if we don’t know what their objective is.”

“Their objective is to solidify the coven,” Deaton says, Agent Coulson looks up at him, he’s switched out the red marker with a blue one and he stands there with the marker uncapped in his hand and his eyes narrowing at Deaton.

“And we know this how?”

“Because what other reason would they have to be here?”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Crawford gets Isaac and two SHIELD agents as his little assigned group. He’s got a bulletproof vest on over his sweatshirt and is wishing that he’d put insoles into the boots that Hill had tossed at him. He has a gun but it’s holstered and he hopes against hope that he doesn’t need to use it.

Isaac leads the way, Crawford following and the two SHIELD agents behind them, they have their rifles out and their visors down and when he periodically glances back they seem to fade in and out of the tree lines.

Crawford picks his way over fallen trees and tries to not make any noise to draw attention to them; he’s so focused on the ground that he misses Isaac stopping and runs right into him.

“What?” he breathes out and Isaac lifts up a hand and gestures to the right. It takes a moment for Crawford to see her; she’s dressed much like he is, save for the bulletproof vest and gun. Jeans and a sweatshirt, hiking boots. She inclines her head at him and smiles softly then sort of wanders off to the left.

“The witches are here,” he says into his comm.

“You’re sure?” he hears Agent Coulson ask.

“I just saw Andrea; I’m assuming the rest are probably somewhere else in the woods.”

“Copy,” Agent Coulson says, Crawford wonders how drastically this’ll rearrange their plans or if Agent Coulson had always had the witches planned in.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The road to hell is paved in good intentions.

If he’d known that cleansing the dagger would have him on a bumpy, roller coaster road to hell without a seat belt to restrain him and having Chris Argent shot right in front of him… well he thinks he would have left the damn thing screaming in Helsinki.

He wouldn’t have, he’s not built that way. His father called him his little-fixer before he hit his teen-age years then he became his little-troublemaker.

“Do you really need one that big?” Stiles mutters when he sees the top of the pyre, they’re driving towards it at an angle, but it still looks fucking huge. There’s a brief moment of fear that they might have managed to track the remaining members of the makeshift coven he’d put together for the cleansing.

Then he shakes his head, he thinks he would know.

It’s just him and his father and some Hunters trying to make a point.

“We’re taking some pictures for the newsletter,” Harrison says from the front seat, he doesn’t turn so Stiles can’t tell if he’s kidding or not. He doesn’t think he is, Harrison is the kind of whack-job that _would_ probably have a monthly newsletter complete with pictures and stories of his activities. It should make it easier for SHIELD to find him after it’s all said and done.

“That’s awesome, make sure you get my good side,” Stiles says. Harrison turns to glare at him and Stiles smiles brightly, inside he’s kind of freaking out a whole fucking lot, but he’s not going to let this asshole know that.

They should have found Chris by now, he swallows down the lump. Shot at close range, there’s really no way… but Allison will lose what remains of her mind if he’s actually dead so Stiles is going to hope that there was at least one wolf lurking in the vicinity that was maybe able to get help.

Derek should have had his wolves looking for anything out of the ordinary and the huge pile of wood complete with towering cross in the center is kind of not an ordinary fixture in Beacon Hills.

It’s much bigger up close, Stiles decides when they actually pull into the clearing. He wishes that he could say it was a surprise to be pulled out of the back of the SUV and tossed onto the ground next to his dad.

But it isn’t.

He’s seen this.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“I’ve got eyes on Agent Stilinski,” Crawford hears over his headset, ahead of him Isaac stops and turns, eyes wide.

“His father is here too,” Crawford closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly and makes a motion to Isaac that they should continue. The SHIELD agents are flanking them on the left and right doing that thing where they disappear and reappear at random intervals.

They start moving again and they’re relatively silent, Crawford walking in Isaac’s footsteps so as to not disturb or make any noises that would alert the Hunters as to their presence.

The sound of branch breaking is loud enough that it startles him into stopping, his grip tightens around the gun in his hand, Isaac turns his head slightly to the right and sniffs.

“Go,” he whispers and Isaac is gone. He’s human, Isaac is not. The end of that word problem is pretty easy to figure out.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“They’ve got Crawford,” comes over the radios and Derek stills, Isaac had been with Crawford, along with two SHIELD agents. No other information is forthcoming and he starts moving.

He has Agent Coulson directly behind him and its small work to put more and more distance between them.

He thinks Coulson lets him, he’s not sure why, he’s fairly sure he doesn’t _want_ to know why.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“You okay?” his dad asks and Stiles bites his lips and keeps his head turned slightly away so his father can’t see the bruises.

“They shot Chris,” Stiles says. His dad looks over at him, Stiles bites his lip and tries to not see Chris slumped against the wall, bleeding as Harrison’s goons dragged him screaming away. Probably wasn’t his best moment.

“We’re going to be okay,” his dad says quietly, Stiles huffs a laugh that he’s sure sounds as disbelieving as he feels.

And then he feels it. The energy of…

He coughs to mask the grin.

“So,” Harrison says as he comes to stand right in front of them. He’s got a maniacal sort of look in his eyes.

“You had your chance to spew out your evil little monologue and you chose to shoot Chris instead; so how ‘bout we just bypass it and move on to other things, hmm?”

“You should have raised your son to show some respect for his elders,” Harrison growls.

“I raised my son to speak to his mind, and respect those elders that they deserve it,” he glances over at Stiles and Stiles knows what he’s seeing, bruises on his face from Harrison’s goons. It’s still early so he probably can’t see the bruises on his jaw.

“From the bruises on him, I’m fairly sure that you don’t deserve it.”

Stiles hears raised voices and Harrison walks away from them, crossing to the backside of the pyre.

“Dad…”

“It’s fine, it’s going to be fine,” his dad says and Stiles closes his eyes and concentrates on the energy of the coven. There’s seven distinct points he can feel and he slides in and around it, he flexes his arms and can feel the bonds on his wrist give just a little. He stills, leaves them be because it would be epic kinds of bad if Harrison decided to redo them.

He jerks a bit when he feels his father slide into the energy that the coven is putting off, its strong, circling around the clearing and he can’t see any of them but he can feel the different touches of each like a hug reassuring him.

“ _Let me go_!” he hears snarled and he stiffens, head jerking to the left. Crawford is being dragged between two of Harrison’s Hunters, dragging his feet and struggling.

He gets dumped unceremoniously on the ground in front of them and Harrison kicks a booted foot out at him sending him sprawling into Stiles and his dad. He has to fight with everything he has to not break his bonds and help him.

They straighten, Crawford getting his feet under him, Stiles and his dad going back to their knees, close to the ground. They could sit on the ground, he’d be able to get his hands into the soil if he did but it would also look suspicious and Stiles doesn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to his hands at the moment.

“He’s human, he’s not involved in this,” his dad is saying and Crawford is nodding, hands out in front of him. Eyes flying everywhere looking for a way out.

At least Stiles thinks that’s what he’s doing but then he realizes that he’s inching ever closer to being directly in front of Stiles and his dad. Like he means to protect him with his body.

“He’s human,” Harrison agrees. “But he _is_ involved in this,” one of his Hunters hands of a gun, small caliber handgun, probably the type that stay at home moms in the 80’s used to keep for protection.

The shot isn’t as loud this time, doesn’t echo like it did in the basement. He can hear the birds screeching as they take flight and Derek’s _howl_ as he leaps _through_ the pyre behind them.

Crawford still goes down. But Derek is there just milliseconds later hovering right over his body.

Stiles can count the number of times that he’s seen Derek in full out wolf mode (once, when the pack had come back from fighting the mountain troll and Derek had figured out how to access it but hadn’t figured out how to change back). He doesn’t remember him being this big, and snarling.

He looks like a feral animal, hovering over Crawford’s motionless body, all snarling noises and snapping jaws when anyone tries to come near him.

_This_ is his vision, he’d only ever seen Derek and his dad and himself, and that was mostly just the tops of their bodies. He’d never seen who they were facing and he’d never realized that Derek was hovering _over_ anybody.

“You should call your wolf off,” Harrison says, his narrowed eyes say he’s pissed, but the tremor in his voice lends credence to the fact that some Hunters only hunt specific things and Harrison and his hunters have not ever been confronted by a real, actual werewolf.

“I would,” Stiles say. Derek growls low in his throat. “But he’s my Alpha, and he doesn’t answer to anyone but himself and Chris Argent who he held a treaty with, so…” Stiles smiles a bit, just a little and he gets his feet under him. His father stands beside him and he pulls on his bonds, letting them fall to the ground.

Harrison makes a noise of inarticulate rage; it warms him a little inside.

He takes two steps forward and rests one hand on Derek’s head, letting his fingers scritch in the spot right behind his left ear that Derek trapped in wolf form had loved it. On the other side of Derek his dad lets his hand fall onto Derek’s neck.

“I would suggest dropping your weapons,” Agent Coulson says, there are twelve dressed in black SHIELD agents coming into the clearing with weapons drawn, the rest of the pack minus Peter and Allison right alongside them. “Or we can let the wolves run wild, your choice really.”

“This isn’t over,” Harrison says. “There will be others.”

Stiles smiles, it probably looks a little sad, he doesn’t care.

“There always is.”

 

******************************************************************************

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 25/?**

He stands there, fingers buried in Derek’s fur and he… just stands there. He’s having a ‘not dead, what the hell do I do now’ moment. His father would probably call it a panic attack; _he_ would probably call it a panic attack except he’s not in a fetal position on the ground trying to force air into his lungs.

So he’s having a _moment_ and everyone is _letting_ him have his moment, or rather Derek’s continued presence in wolf form with periodic snarling; keeps the questions at bay and allows him a small measure of solitude in a sea of motion.

He can hear movement around them, the Hunters being rounded up by SHIELD agents, Agent Coulson talking into his headset.

There are SHIELD agents in front of them, hesitating and he knows they want to get to Crawford so he tugs a little on Derek’s fur and takes three steps back. Derek moves with him easily, eyes watchful as they roll Crawford over. They push away clothing, prodding at a wound that is bleeding; Crawford makes a noise low in his throat and Derek growls.

He considers him pack, Stiles realizes. Derek considers Crawford pack and he wonders when that had happened.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Derek doesn’t shift from his wolf form and it embarrasses him to realize that he lost his clothes when he shifted and isn’t shifting back because they’re surrounded by SHIELD agents and Hunters and…

“Here,” Agent Hill says, she pushes a pile of clothes at him and he lets go of Derek’s fur which has been keeping him relatively calm and steady to take them.

He looks between the pile of clothing and her and she just looks at him. She has that no-expression thing down that Agent Coulson does all the time. They probably teach a class or something once you get to a certain pay grade.

“I sent one of our agents to go collect them,” she says, she makes a gesture at Derek. “Riding to the hospital with him like that is going to be…”

“He likes to stick his head out the window,” Stiles says.

Derek bares his teeth at him and Stiles smiles, it looks kind of sickly if the way that Derek presses close to his legs is any indication, he lets him have a moment then starts nudging at him with his nose.

Herding him towards two cars that apparently he’s going to use as cover to change from wolf form to naked form to hopefully very quickly clothed form. Just because Clint’s not there doesn’t mean that he won’t kill Derek for flashing him even unintentionally.

His dad raises his eyebrows at him from where he’s talking with what he guesses is now his coven.

“You never told me that you considered Crawford pack,” he says. The ambulance is long gone, rushing off with sirens screaming and lights flashing; Lydia and Danny riding along because Stiles hadn’t been able to leave and he wanted people with Crawford just in case.

“You consider him pack,” Derek says and Stiles averts his eyes even though he’s seen every single wolf in his pack naked at some point, he’s got a boyfriend he doesn’t need to be looking at other guys naked.

“What?”

“You consider Crawford pack, so _we_ consider Crawford pack,” Derek says, Stiles hazards a glance up and Derek is pulling a t-shirt over his head, ruffling his hair a little.

“You consider them all pack, the Avengers, Coulson and Hill, Crawford…”

“You’re not going to challenge Director Fury, are you, because that would be…”

“He’s not a wolf,” Derek says in his ‘you’re an idiot’ voice that Stiles hasn’t heard since he was seventeen.

“But…”

“He’s not a wolf.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

The witches are standing off in a group, his father and Deaton with them. He can feel the energy from them sort of filtering around so once Derek is dressed he makes his way there.

“Thank you,” he says and Andrea smiles at him.

“Why are you thanking me? The coven was brought together by you,” she reaches out and he takes her hand, she squeezes his fingers and he bites his lip.

“I meant for coming, you didn’t need to, they were, if they’d found you they would have…”

“I don’t fear death, I don’t believe any of us do,” the group shakes their head as one and his father tugs him into a hug. Hands touching his back, he thinks Andrea’s is on the back of his head.

“It’ll be okay,” she says softly.

And he believes her.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Stiles sits sandwiched between Derek and his father in the backseat of one of the SHIELD vehicles. Agent Coulson is driving, Agent Hill is silent in the passenger seat though she has a tablet in her hands that she’s making continually frustrated noises at.

“There’s really no clear signal out here this time of day,” his dad says, “you’ll get one once we clear the wooded areas and get on the main road.”

“There is at least one SHIELD satellite right above us, not counting the one that Stark has got to eavesdrop on all of us.”

“Doesn’t matter, its sunspots or something,” his dad says. He glances at his watch. “We’ll be out of the woods by then but normally between the hours of three and six you can’t get a signal to save your life.”

Agent Hill makes a noise and looks out the window like she can see the satellite and force it to communicate with her tablet.

“Our radios worked,” Agent Coulson says.

“Short distances and everyone you were attempting to contact was within the same geographical area. If you’d been trying to contact someone at say, the hospital, you wouldn’t have been able to.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Crawford is in surgery when they get to the hospital, waiting room overflowing with SHIELD agents and wolves and the pack humans. The witches had all gone to hotel rooms and they’re going to meet Stiles and his dad at eight for breakfast before they all scatter.

He makes a mental note to get contact information. They should probably have a phone tree in place in case something like this happens again.

Allison flies at him, arms wrapping tightly around him. She doesn’t look crazy so he’s taking that as a sign that her dad isn’t dead.

“He’s going to be okay,” she’s saying, whether to him or to Derek he’s not sure. He doesn’t care. What’s important is that he didn’t manage to get Chris Argent killed and throw Allison off the deep end. He hugs her back then releases her.

“Peter’s sitting with him now,” Allison says. When he looks at her he can see that she looks tired and kind of pale but there’s a small amount of amusement there. “They fight a lot about things that I probably don’t want to really know the details of.”

Agent Coulson has his head bent talking to Scott’s mom and he knows that look in her eyes, he’s going to end up in a room at some point being poked and prodded and possibly confined to a bed.

The pack is milling around, touching his arm, touching Derek’s arm, allowing Derek to touch them in return.

“Stiles,” Melissa is at his side and she presses a cool hand to the side of his face.

“I feel fine,” he says, he has to try. “I don’t…”

“You need an IV and maybe some painkillers,” she says, completely ignoring him. “Definitely some food.”

“I want a cheeseburger and curly fries,” he says even though he knows that it’s hopeless.

“The hospital doesn’t serve that; I’ll get you some chicken broth and rice.”

He looks at her, letting his lower lip tremble a bit and she rolls her eyes at him; his dad drops an arm over his shoulders and tugs him towards the admittance desk.

“Don’t give Melissa a hard time,” his dad says and Stiles allows himself to be ushered along without much further argument.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“Where’s Clint?” he asks when they’ve got him settled in a room and everyone with the exception of Agent Coulson has gone off to either get food or harangue underlings.

Agent Coulson clears his throat and glances towards the door.

“We made contact with the Avengers shortly after you were taken,” he says, Stiles nods. “But we lost contact with them before they could make arrangements to get home and we haven’t heard anything since.”

Stiles blinks at him. “They’re okay though, right?”

“When we had contact with them they were all fine,” Agent Coulson says. “We didn’t tell them what the emergency was that they were being recalled for, we didn’t want to panic anyone.”

They didn’t want to panic Clint. Or Tony. Or Steve or any other member of the Avengers that had decided they had a vested interest in Stiles being alive and staying alive.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Agent Coulson says, and Stiles nods. Because the alternative is not something he wants to think about.

 

******************************************************************************

 

They force him to stay in the bed with the IV for eight hours by having Isaac sit in the chair nearest his bed and pout whenever he tries to get up.

“I just want to see Chris and make sure Crawford is ok,” he says.

“Mr. Argent is resting comfortably. Crawford isn’t allowed visitors yet and Lydia is riding herd on your dad to make sure he doesn’t eat the food in the cafeteria,” Isaac says. It’s the fifth time he’s recited those same exact words, he doesn’t look up from his magazine anymore.

Stiles sighs, he’d cross his arms over his chest but that would pull on the IV and he’s actually a little tender in the places where fists had landed.

“Mrs. McCall says that you can go once the IV is done,” Isaac says. Stiles looks up and the bag is still half full, he thinks they keep changing it out when he falls asleep so that it’s always half full or mostly full or some measure of _not done_ and stay in that bed or we’ll handcuff you to it.

“I’m fine you know, they’re taking up a perfectly good bed for someone who’s not even hurt.”

Isaac snorts softly.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Peter is sitting on the window sill legs sprawled out in front of him when Derek wheels Stiles into Chris’ room.

“Go team not dead,” Stiles says and Chris huffs a little laugh, shifting uncomfortably. Peter’s eyes narrow and track his movements.

“I asked for my I’m not chained up in a basement or dead celebratory cheeseburger and got some sort of meatloaf surprise from the cafeteria,” Chris makes a face at him, there’s a little smile on his lips and it’s their own little private joke; Derek and Peter are both raising eyebrows in confusion.

“I got chicken broth and rice,” Stiles says. “We should probably file a complaint.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

“What’s going on with Peter and Chris?” Stiles asks when Derek’s wheeling him back to his room. Chris had fallen asleep between one word and the next and Peter had pretty much shut all conversation down and kicked them out of the room.

“They used to be friends once upon a time,” Derek says. It takes him a minute to say that, and he sounds confused about it.

“That doesn’t explain the hovering,” Stiles points out. Or the constant touching, once they’d all been settled in the room, Peter had moved from the window to the side of Chris’ bed. Continually straightening the blankets, adjusting the bed, touching Chris tentatively (like he’s used to touching him but not sure of his welcome anymore); it had been surreal.

“That’s all I know,” Derek says. “Peter said they used to be friends.”

“They act like they were something else,” Stiles says. It’s like a puzzle that he needs to solve, when he gets settled back into his room he’ll ask someone for his laptop and Danny and maybe they’ll be able to get the yearbooks from when Peter and Chris were in school and put the mystery to rest.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“We’re going to move Crawford back to medical on the Helicarrier,” Agent Coulson says, he’s tapping at his phone and not making eye contact. “And we’ve made contact with the Avengers again; they’re on their way back.”

“You should have led with the Avengers thing,” Stiles says, “Because Crawford mentioned this morning that he thought they were going to be moving him fairly shortly and asked if I was coming, so I already knew that.”

“Your requested vacation was up three days ago,” Agent Coulson says. “Also, considering that you were kidnapped during that time and held hostage for several days before being recovered Director Fury rescinded your vacation and put you on active duty.”

Stiles looks at him and Agent Coulson taps at his phone, he looks irritated and Stiles wonders if he’s playing a game or if someone is pissing him via text message.

“Are the Avengers alright, what happened?”

“Not completely sure yet, they’ll officially debrief when they get back, but the short story is that some other life form decided to try and take Loki for war crimes committed and there was a brief scuffle to retain control of him and then some, apparently fairly minor, battles. I’m sure that someone is coming back with at least one new scar if not a broken bone or two, the Avengers don’t know how to do fairly minor battles.”

“But everyone is okay?”

Agent Coulson looks up, makes eye contact with him and doesn’t blink.

“At last check in all the Avengers were present and accounted for, so yes, Hawkeye is fine.”

 

 

******************************************************************************

 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay. Work, then vacation made getting this chapter done and up a trial and a half. But we should be back on schedule now!

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 26/?**

It’s not like Stiles feels like he’s being left behind…

It’s just he feels like he’s being _left behind_. SHIELD has packed up and moved out, the agents that had come into town to help him being moved back to their normal duty stations or regular assignments or _new_ assignments.

When Crawford is stable and a week into healing up from the gunshot wound they start packing him up too.

“So I’ll see you back on the ‘carrier?” Crawford asks right before they whisk him away and Stiles nods because he doesn’t know what else to say. It feels kind of _petty_ to whine about how _he_ wants to be whisked away when Crawford is still pale and sometimes out of it because of the drugs that he’s getting due to getting shot trying to help him.

“Why’s your face making that expression?” Crawford asks with narrowed eyes.

“That’s his’ you’re all leaving me behind’ look,” Scott says, he’s stationed in a chair by the window, feet propped up on Crawford’s bed.

“ _We are not_ ,” Crawford says, he sounds scandalized. “You’re my _boss_ ; do you know how long it’ll take to retrain someone?”

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m telling Agent Coulson,” Crawford mutters, he’s flushing a little and scowling a lot. “ _Leaving you behind_ , hah, what do you think Hawkeye would say if he came back from Asgard and got told that we left you behind in Beacon Hills?”

“He’d probably shoot someone,” Stiles says, he smiles a little and Scott snorts. “You don’t get to judge, you get inappropriately turned on when Allison starts talking about defensive tactics and restrings her crossbow in front of you.”

“We weren’t ever going to talk about that,” Scott says a note of betrayal tingeing his voice. “Not in front of people who aren’t us.”

“Crawford isn’t just anyone,” Stiles would call him his minion but that screams evil overlord and Crawford is more sidekick or partner than mindless drone. Besides he thinks Crawford would figure out how to get a weapon into their office to shoot him if he ever called him a minion in his outdoor voice.

 

*******************************************************************

 

Derek spends in inordinate amount of time in his room, it’s disconcerting and Stiles has gotten to the point where he just ignores the gargoyle lurking in the corner.

Though that’s really hard to do when Agent Coulson comes to say goodbye and Derek just stands there in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, glaring.

Agent Coulson doesn’t say anything but Stiles gets defensive on Derek’s behalf anyway.

“It’s because of the kidnapping,” he says, Agent Coulson doesn’t say anything.

“I guess I should count myself lucky that he hasn’t made a pile of blankets on the floor and instituted pack cuddle time right in the middle of my hospital room,” he muses.

Derek growls something that sounds suspiciously like ‘give me time’ and Agent Coulson’s lips twitch, just a little. Barely noticeable unless you’re looking for it.

“So Director Fury has put you back on vacation,” he says. “We’ll expect you back on the ‘carrier in three days, transport has already been arranged for you back into the city.”

“Awesome,” Stiles grins.

Agent Coulson sighs, barely audible but Derek twitches in the corner so Stiles knows he didn’t imagine it.

“I spend an excessive amount of time trying to keep Agent Barton from shooting people for being stupid, I don’t plan on painting a target on my own back now or at any point in the future,” he says. “Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, then we’ll see you on the ‘carrier in three days times.”

 

*******************************************************************

 

Lydia is waiting for him when his father brings him home, she looks toned down from her normal amounts of awesome which is mildly alarming.

“We need to talk,” she says, his dad takes one look at the expression on her face and apparently decides that saving _himself_ is more important than protecting his son.

“Traitor,” Stiles calls after him. His dad waves as he’s pulling out of the driveway.

“Come on, have a seat,” Lydia says, Stiles shoots her a wary look, much the way he would with any other dangerous predator, except instead of running for the hills screaming he calmly walks into the living room.

 

*******************************************************************

 

Apparently everyone but him knew that Derek had a thing for him. He lies on his bed and tries to readjust his worldview to include the fact that Derek, who’s always seemed happier when he’s not there, is in fact not happier when he’s not there.

In fact he’s a downright miserable SOB and Lydia wants him to do something about it.

_“Like what?” he’d asked._

Because he’s got a boyfriend that he’s really fucking happy with, is almost certainly in love with. And he’s got a job that he really likes. He’s not giving either of those up just because Derek is apparently the sad puppy when he’s not there.

_“I don’t know, but figure something out before mutiny is declared.”_

“This is not my life.”

 

*******************************************************************

 

He doesn’t do anything; apparently burying his head in the sand is as good a response as anything. He passes his time by _spending_ time with his dad, spending time with the pack (while ignoring this new to him Derek-issue) and calling Agent Coulson to see if he’s heard anything from the Avengers.

He hasn’t, though Crawford is apparently still in medical having developed some infection or something.

“You’d tell me if he’d been infected by Derek, right? Because I don’t remember Derek biting him or scratching him or anything like that.”

“He’s not a werewolf,” Agent Coulson says. “He’s just pushing to get himself back on his feet and developed some upper-respiratory infection that apparently is going around.”

“Well if everyone’s getting sick I don’t know if I really want to come back,” Stiles says.

“The jet will be waiting for you at the strip tomorrow at 5 am, make sure you set your alarm.”

“You mean you can’t do that from where you are?”

Agent Coulson makes a noise that could maybe be a snort from anyone else and hangs up on him.

 

*******************************************************************

 

His dad drives him to the airstrip, Scott dozing in the backseat like an overgrown infant that needs the motion of the car moving to soothe him to sleep.

All the witches, save Stiles, are staying in Beacon Hills. They’re looking for some land to build a house on and the pack has already said that they’d help out when the time came.

Stiles hopes that they don’t let Scott or Isaac near power tools of any sort because he can see blood and many visits to emergency vet services as a result.

“You’re excited about the garden,” he says and his dad doesn’t even look at him strange.

“Haven’t had one since your mom passed,” his dad says. “Didn’t really feel like…” his mouth twists.

It didn’t feel right.

 

*******************************************************************

 

The jet is sitting at the landing strip when they arrive; the pilot isn’t anyone that he recognizes at first glance and it’s been a rough few months so he thinks he can be forgiven for making him show him ID before he let him take his bags.

He hugs his dad.

“Don’t let them give you any shit about not moving into the house,” Stiles advises. The coven wants everyone to be under one roof, Stiles can’t because SHIELD keeps him in a different city and half the time not even anywhere near the ground.

His dad doesn’t know any of them and doesn’t feel comfortable moving in having just met them. He can’t say as he blames him.

“Don’t swear,” his dad says automatically. “And I don’t know it might be nice to have people around, house is awful big with you gone.”

Stiles makes a face, because there’s also something to be said for silence.

“Dude, I can’t believe you weren’t going to wake me up to say goodbye,” Scott’s arms wrap around him from behind.

“You were sleeping so peacefully,” Stiles coos at him, patting his arm. Scott mock growls at him, hugging him tight enough to lift him off the ground.

“Ignore Lydia,” he says against his neck, Stiles stiffens a little and his dad frowns at them.

“Did _everyone_ know about the Derek thing but me?”

“Well I guess to be fair you were gone so you missed all the super pathetic moping he did,” Scott grins.

“Derek doesn’t mope,” Stiles rolls his eyes and shoves his elbow into Scott’s stomach until he lets him go.

“He does, it just looks an awful lot like his grumpy face.”

 

*******************************************************************

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 27/?**

His room is actually exactly the same when he gets back to the Helicarrier at 0 dark 30. He’d been kind of hoping for a half-naked Clint to be reclining on his bed (if wishes were horses then… well they’d probably be crapping all over his bedroom floor and he wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep).

Instead if a half-naked Clint, he keys into his room and finds that the light on his dresser isn’t working and the pile of dirty laundry is still sitting in the corner waiting for someone to toss it into appropriate bin for cleaning.

He sighs, drops his bags by the door, closes it and walks four steps to collapse face first on his bed.

All that stuff will still be there in the morning.

 

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He shrugs into a uniform and he ignores how the fabric presses uncomfortably against his remaining bruises.

He’s going to be all alone in his office, no Crawford (still confined to medical, he makes a mental note to visit after lunch), no Clint with papers spread out across the table along one wall. He contemplates for about seven seconds just not going in and spending the time bugging Crawford in medical.

His office is going to quiet and boring and it’ll be just him and his computer and ‘Tony’ doing the mamba on his computer screen.

 

*******************************************************************

 

“Good morning,” he hears as soon as he opens the door. He fumbles his travel mug of coffee, thankfully with lid still on or he’d be _wearing_ said mug of coffee and manfully manages to choke back a scream.

There’s a woman sitting at Crawford’s desk. She looks alarmed at having alarmed him and is slowly coming around Crawford’s desk.

“Did someone forget to tell me that Crawford was having a sex change, that seems like the sort of thing that he would normally put in my calendar,” Stiles says, he presses the hand not clutching his mug to his chest.

“I’m Specialist Lynsey, you can call me Darla or Lynsey,” the woman says with a shrug.

“Okay,” Stiles says slowly, the door is still open; he could inch out if she’d just look away. He doesn’t really want to look like he’s running away from a woman but…

“Agent Coulson sent me to help you while Specialist Crawford is in medical,” she says, she smiles brightly at him. Tony is going to eat her alive, let alone Clint.

“No,” Stiles says, he says it in his firm, ‘I don’t care if you’re the fucking Alpha you’re not the boss of me’ voice.

“Um,” Darla blinks at him and Stiles turns on his heel and leaves.

 

*******************************************************************

 

“I don’t need help,” Stiles says, Agent Coulson had been in with someone else and he’s spent the last twenty minutes fuming in a chair right outside his office.

“Crawford says that you do,” Agent Coulson says, he steeples his hands together on his desk and looks at him.

“Well he’s wrong,” Stiles says, Agent Coulson raises an eyebrow at him. “And what are her qualifications, because you know that what we do is kind of,” he waves his hand.

“I gave Crawford a list of names; he did the research and picked the best candidate from the pile.”

“He’s only been here for three days,” Stiles says with narrowed eyes.

“And it’s only for a few weeks while Crawford recuperates, if he’s not worrying about you trying to do your work and his work maybe he’ll actually do what the doctors tell him to do.”

 

*******************************************************************

 

He goes to see Crawford. Because it’s not like he doesn’t believe Agent Coulson, it’s just…

Well he thinks that if Crawford had thoughts about replacing himself that he would have at least called and made mention of that fact.

“Your face is doing that thing again, I thought we already talked about that,” Crawford says, his eyes are open the barest crack, Stiles can see just the little bit of his eye. It’s actually a bit disconcerting and makes him wonder if Crawford talks in his sleep.

“There was a girl in our office this morning,” he says and Crawford makes a hmming noise.

“That’s Specialist Lynsey, good, I didn’t think that Agent Coulson had time to get things moved around but it looks like he did,” Crawford mumbles.

Stiles narrows his eyes a little and his mouth twists.

“You look really pale, you would tell me if you were dying, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m not dying,” Crawford says.

“Well there’s a girl in our office, what am I supposed to do with her? I could have handled things you know; I was research guy for a lot of years. I have research-fu that we haven’t even _begun_ to utilize,” Stiles waggles his fingers at Crawford and Crawford huffs out a little laugh.

“If you’re that annoyed about her being there have her sort through the filing cabinets,” Crawford smiles a little smile. “That way that get sorted through and I don’t have to be there to watch the office explode into disarray.”

 

*******************************************************************

 

He puts her to work sorting through the filing cabinets. Putting the stack of stuff that Clint had been working on before the Avengers had gone to Asgard in a pile on the corner of his desk and giving her the large table to work with.

“Crawford’s got this thing about errant sheets of paper,” Stiles says as he leans back in his chair and watches her unload the first drawer.

“You mean he has a severe case of OCD,” Darla says. “When we worked together on background checks he would freak out when someone left a coffee cup on the corner of his desk, then spend twenty minutes scrubbing at the spot.”

“So you know Crawford then?”

“We got hired at about the same time, he’s, well he’s a nice guy if you ignore the OCD and the fact that all the good ones are always gay. It gets annoying after a while.”

 

*******************************************************************

 

“So how is Specialist Lynsey working out for you?” Agent Coulson asks, he’s sitting ramrod straight at his desk, periodically his eyes flicker away to glance at the clock on the wall.

“She’s doing fine, she found my cellphone in the third drawer she went through and she’s weeding a lot of the crap out so there’s not nearly as much paper as there was. She’s talking about getting it scanned into PDF’s so it can be saved somewhere and we search for it electronically but we’re waiting until she goes through the remainder.”

“Specialist Crawford will be released onto light duty on Monday; if you’re amenable I would like Lynsey to continue working with you for the interim.”

“But Crawford is still mine, right? This isn’t some roundabout way of sneaking him away from me and giving me someone else?”

“Lynsey speaks Spanish near fluently but has expressed no interest in learning additional languages, she’ll be helping you out for only as long as Crawford needs an extra set of hands and you deem her a worthwhile addition to your team.”

“Okay, good.”

 

*******************************************************************

 

He stops at the cafeteria to get a sad looking ham and Swiss cheese sandwich and a bag of chips. He’s juggling those, a bottle of water and attempting to get his keycard out of his pocket when the door to his office swings open.

“Thanks Darla,” he says as he stumbles his way in then gets a good look at what’s going on in his office and promptly drops everything. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“We came to tell you we were back and she was in here,” Tony’s hands are waving and his face is a little red which does nothing to mask the bruise across one cheek.

“That’s Darla, Specialist Lynsey, she’s helping me out while Crawford’s in medical,” Stiles say, he peels Clint’s hands off her chest and lets Darla hide behind him.

“Hi, how about you manhandle me and not my minions,” Stiles suggests. Clint looks at him and Stiles would never call Agent Coulson a lying liar that lies but there are bruises and cuts and Clint looks kind of fragile in a way that he’s never seen before.

“Why is Crawford in medical?” Natasha asks, he can see her over Clint’s shoulder for just a second before Clint pulls him into a hug.

“There was a thing and Crawford got hurt, but he’s fine now,” he assures Clint’s shoulder.

Coulson will probably report out the whole thing in some messy debrief that he’s really hoping that he’s not present for because he’s sure there’s going to be yelling in the form of ‘why the hell didn’t you contact us via telepathy and tell us what the fuck was going on’.

“He’ll be back to work on Monday,” he says, Clint draws back and cups his face in one hand, Stiles smiles up at him and Clint leans forward so that their foreheads are touching. “I take your thing was kind of a mess?”

“We’re all present and accounted for,” Clint says.

Stiles hmms and thinks that statement leaves a lot up for interpretation.

 

*******************************************************************

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 28/30**

Clint should be in medical, probably strapped to a bed right next to Crawford.

Stiles realizes this when they leave his office, meander their way to the cafeteria for food and then back to his room and Clint starts stripping off his uniform to change into sweats.

It’s normally a sight Stiles would enjoy; naked Clint and half-naked Clint are some of his absolute _favorite_ Clint’s. Naked Clint and half-naked Clint typically lead to sexy-times Clint which is a Clint that’s he’s sorely missed.

Half-naked Clint with a bandage taped haphazardly to his back with dots of red just starting to show through… that’s not a favorite Clint.

That’s a Clint that makes him purse his lips and tap his foot.

“Should you be in medical?” he asks, he can’t stop himself, Clint pulls a t-shirt over his head and it’s pulled from one of his drawers but it’s definitely _not_ one of his t-shirts.

“No,” Clint says, he turns and raises an eyebrow at him.

Stiles knows that almost all his bruises are gone, so he just raises an eyebrow right back at him.

“You checked yourself out AMA didn’t you,” Stiles says, he rubs a hand over his head and buries the sigh.

“I’m fine,” Clint says. “It’s just a couple of cuts and Steve being a mother hen.”

Stiles bites his lip and doesn’t believe him.

 

********************************************************

 

Apparently there were cameras recording all the events in Beacon Hills. If Stiles had known this he would have had Danny figure out a way to pull the copies even though he knows that with SHIELD involved that would have probably been impossible.

But he _didn’t_ know that cameras were capturing everything, so instead he ends up with Clint bursting into his office looking like the hounds of hell are nipping at his heels (they’re not Stiles is relieved to see).

“What the…?” he manages before Clint is pulling him up out of his chair, patting him down like he’s searching for weapons or broken bones.

Darla has her clipboard cradled to her chest and her eyes are wide. She’s shooting him the ‘should I call for mental health?’ look and he shoots back a ‘not yet, let’s wait until he actually starts speaking in tongues first’ look.

He can see why she was on Crawford’s short list, though if Crawford thinks that he’s going to lounge around in medical eating Jell-O forever he’s got another thing coming.

“Next time one of us is staying behind,” Clint mutters into his ear.

“Okay,” Stiles pats at his back. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on big guy.”

“Coulson showed us the video,” Clint says, he pulls back so he’s not so blatantly clinging.

“Video?” Stiles asks.

“The one,” Clint waves his hand. “I guess I owe Derek a beer or something.”

He sounds kind of grudging about that, like owing Derek something is equal parts annoying and not fair on some level.

Stiles doesn’t bring up the whole Derek pining thing, it’s most definitely not the right time and Stiles thinks that he might have to have Clint restrained or something.

 

********************************************************

 

“So I’m thinking we need to come up with a game plan on how to keep Darla,” Stiles says, Crawford raises an eyebrow at him. “Of course we’ll also have to find a bigger office if we manage to somehow do that.”

“You could just submit a Form 2714, with Form 137B and Agent Coulson would probably sign off on them,” Crawford says, he rubs at his chest making a face.

“Okay, leaving aside I don’t have the first clue what Forms 2714 and 137B are, or even where to find them,” Stiles waves a hand. “Why would Coulson just _give_ us Darla?”

“Because he’s been trying to slide another body into the department since before Agent Markoff died, plus it would make everyone’s lives easier if we could actually move the whole office down three floors to the secure level.”

“Well it would give Tony something to do, figuring out how to break the door locks,” Stiles muses. Crawford makes a face. “Sometime you’re going to have to tell me what exactly is up with you and the Avengers.”

“It’s nothing,” Crawford says. Stiles snorts because Crawford can’t even meet his eyes which means that it’s _not_ nothing.

“I was in New York when,” Crawford waves his hand to indicate what Stiles assumes is meant to be the alien invasion when the Avenger first popped onto the scene. “I was nineteen, first year of college, was in the city when it started.”

“I was watching it on TV,” Stiles says, “it looked pretty intense.”

Crawford makes a noise that could be amusement if his face wasn’t twisting into something else. “It was… crazy, I was,” he shakes his head. “I was absolutely and completely terrified, spent most of the time huddled in a building with thirty other terrified people trying to call my mom.”

“So why did you join SHIELD? You wanted to get paid to be terrified all the time?”

“Because I wanted to _not_ be,” Crawford says. “And also after it all happened my dad tried to force me to come home, said it wasn’t safe and look only bad things happen in the city and… my Avengers thing is just… they didn’t rescue me, no one pulled me out of burning building or saved me from a monster, but they were there and if they hadn’t been we’d all have been dead.”

Stiles doesn’t think that’s all it is, but he’s willing to let Crawford think he believes that.

 

********************************************************

 

Darla is a fixer Stiles realizes. He puts her to organizing the filing cabinets because she speaks no languages other than English and has no desire to stick in a Rosetta Stone disc and start learning one.

“I barely passed English the first time around,” she says, “tossing another language in there is just asking for me to fuck that up to.”

She’s… he likes her, he realizes when he looks over and instead of her just dumping everything in the cabinet out and starting all over again she goes drawer by drawer.

There are color coded files and papers smoothed out (his cellphone appears on his desk between him showing up in the morning and coming back from a meeting with Coulson to fight for his right to have an assistant that doesn’t speak dead languages), tabs in various colors and Darla making annoyed sounds.

“I can’t believe Crawford let them get this bad,” Darla mutters.

“To be fair Crawford didn’t,” Stiles says, he taps his pen on his desk and Darla narrows her eyes at him. He stops and folds his hand together. “Those were all on Agent Markoff’s desk and the tables in the corner, I just kind of…”

“Flung them all over the floor to see if Crawford would have a nervous breakdown?”

“Honestly I didn’t know about the OCD thing until after the papers were already there, and he was having fits so I just started shoving them into filing cabinets, which he hated too so I normally waited until he left for the day. Of course then he started complaining that they were going to explode and the paper would be all over.”

“Is that when the locks got put on?”

“It made Crawford feel better.”

 

********************************************************

 

Stiles has weekly phone calls with the coven added into his phone call schedule, he spends a lot of time on the phone on Sunday, normally with Clint leaning against him watching a movie on his laptop with the volume turned almost off.

“We started planting the garden,” Andrea says, they have him on speaker which annoys him normally but this way everyone can hear him and he can hear everyone else.

“So decisions were finally made on what was going to be planted then?”

“Corn, carrots and watermelon, and then a wide range of herbs and other plants that can be used in spells,” his dad says. His mom had always loved fresh garden grown watermelon, and his dad had always done something to keep the rabbits from stealing the carrots. They’d normally have the only garden with crops to make it to picking time.

“I was always partial to radishes,” he muses; Tony would probably let him have a patch of roof at the Avengers building to start a small one if he asked.

 

********************************************************

 

Crawford is waiting at his desk when he gets into the office in the morning, he looks pale but determined and Stiles immediately starts rehearsing speeches as to why Crawford needs to stay and if does he’ll never force him into the field again.

“We’re keeping Darla,” he says and Stiles blinks. “But Agent Coulson says if we’re keeping her that we need to move to bigger office space.”

“When did you meet with Agent Coulson, why wasn’t I there and… wait does this mean you figured out where the forms we needed to request any of that stuff are kept? Because I asked at least four people and they just looked at me like I was crazy.”

Crawford sighs, it’s familiar and Stiles grins.

 

********************************************************

 

Their new office space actually has _offices_ in it. Stiles gets the one with the door and the view of the clouds when the Helicarrier is airborne or never ending water when it’s not. His door has his name etched into a metal nameplate, _Agent G. Stilinski_.

“So does this mean that your first name isn’t really Stiles?” Tony asks, he has a door now so Tony can come in and harass him without Crawford needing to bolt for his own piece of mind.

“Did you really think that my parents were cruel enough that they’d _actually_ name me Stiles Stilinski?” he asks. “Plus haven’t you already hacked my file? I was pretty sure that would have been the first thing you did.”

Tony makes a face.

“Coulson knows me too well, he buried your file and Crawford’s and put a big fat Stark stop hacking our files message for me to find. Which he should know is just like waving a red flag.”

“I tell you what, you figure out what my first name is without resorting to hacking federal databases or bribery and I’ll think, _think_ I said, put your hands _down_ , moving into the tower.”

“I won’t even make you share a room with Barton if you don’t want to, though he’ll probably be wherever you are so…” Tony shrugs.

“I’m okay with sharing living space with Clint,” Stiles says, he’d better be since they kind of already share his little room on the Helicarrier. “He doesn’t snore and the sex is always a bonus.”

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so my plan is to wrap this story up within the next two chapters. Take a couple of weeks to work on other projects and then in June begin posting the next story in this series.
> 
> So no one freak out because this is wrapping up, 30 is the end, but it's not THE END.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry, will be back with the last chapter soon.
> 
> *runs and hides*

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 29/30**

“So I found something…” Crawford’s face twitches. “Weird.”

Stiles snorts but doesn’t say anything, just makes a hand motion that he hopes signifies ‘hit me with it’ and leaves it at that.

The books open across his desk don’t make any sense, he wishes it was because they were in some foreign language that he didn’t speak, but they’re all in English so he’s fairly sure that’s not the case.

Crawford lays the book he was holding to his chest down across his desk and his face twitches again. It’s oddly distracting.

“Is there something wrong with your…” Stiles makes a motion towards his face and Crawford frowns. “You’re twitching dude?”

“No I’m not,” Crawford says, he shakes his head and makes to leave the office and escape whatever insanity has taken hold of Stiles, of course that’s when Stiles looks down at the book.

“What is this?” Stiles asks, there’s a flicker of dread, he’s cold all of a sudden. Feel cold and lonely and…

“Symbols of A’kresh,” Crawford says simply, his face doesn’t change expression, he could be talking about the weather. “But see the thing is…”

“Spit it out Crawford,” Stiles says, he arches an eyebrow at him.

“The thing is we’ve seen these symbols before,” Darla says, she appears behind Crawford in the doorway, holding a small digital camera in her hand.

“What are you talking about?” Stiles bites his lip and Darla hands over the camera.

The camera is already showing one symbol, he flips through and finds three more identical to it but very obviously in different locations.

“Four locations on the Helicarrier,” Darla says.

“Where?”

“North, west, south, east; four pillars,” Crawford says. “All centered around one particular area.”

Stiles looks down at the book at the symbol there, at the symbols on the camera.

“This symbol is to contain something,” Stiles says slowly, he pushes himself to his feet.

“A witch, specifically,” Darla says quietly.

“How long?”

“We don’t know.”

*

The protection sigil is something he remembers in only the vaguest sense from when he was a kid. He would call his father but, unsurprisingly, his phone is not able to make calls. He gets a message, every single time, no matter who he tries to call: _all circuits are busy, please try your call again later. Goodbye_.

All his e-mails are bounced, returned as undeliverable.

He buries the panic underneath the need to try and protect himself, protect Darla and Crawford along with himself.

“So what is this supposed to do?” Crawford asks. His voice has taken on that far away sound that has become the norm.

“Protect you, us, whatever, until we figure out how to get off the helicarrier without arousing suspicion,” Stiles says. He’s carefully inking the sigil onto Crawford’s arm using a black sharpie.

“And a sharpie is going to do that how?” Darla asks, she’s daintily blowing on it.

“It’s not the sharpie, it’s the sigil, and once I,” Stiles waves the hand not holding the sharpie to encompass his magical whateverness. “You’ll be protected.”

He studies the sigil on Crawford’s arm, glances back at his notes to make sure it’s all good and then drops the sharpie on his desk and beckons Darla forward.

“Okay,” he says, he lays his palm over each of their sigils, he’ll have to do Clint next, the rest of the Avengers. But they’re off on some mission or another, it’ll wait until they return.

“This might sting,” he says and he closes his eyes, tries to infuse the power of his beliefs into the sigil’s under his hands.

And nothing happens.

Nothing… he opens his eyes looks between Crawford and Darla and blinks, hands dropping to his side.

“Stiles?” Crawford asks his voice sounds far away, distant and he’s looking decidedly…

“Are you a ghost?” Stiles swallows, he would back up but his desk is digging into his back and there’s nowhere to go.

“What?” Darla looks confused, her non-corporeal form fading in and out. “Was something supposed to happen?”

“I…” Stiles starts and the world lurches and he goes flying forward, Crawford and Darla don’t move, just stand there staring at the spot he was in not moving, not helping him.

The world goes dark, blank, everything there and then not, like a TV screen shutting off, a movie projector stuttering to a stop, little dots of light but no picture to see.

 

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He hates these missions. The ones where they walk into rooms and find dead kids strapped down to beds and no one left to blame or hit.

“I’ve got no survivors here,” he says.

“Copy Cap,” Sharon’s voice sounds normal, there’s just a twinge of something _else_ there, something like grief but buried deep under duty.

There’s four dead kids in this room, the oldest can’t be more the seventeen by his estimation.

“They’ve all got these helmets on,” he says, “Do we have any idea what they’re being used for?”

“They’re some sort of VR tech, fairly advanced, I didn’t think anything like these had even hit the market yet,” Tony’s voice cuts in, he sounds angry.

Steve can’t really blame him.

He surveys the room again, there’s nothing for them to do here but make way for medical to come in with their black body bags so they can determine if these were _just_ kids or if this was another facility being used to perform black market tests on _mutant_ kids.

He hears the tapping when he gets back out in the hallway, faint and faraway and he thinks for a second that maybe it’s one of the others, Clint most likely, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

But Clint had stormed out to take a perch outside one of the most used entrances after they found the second room of dead kids.

“I’ve got noise,” he says quietly into his comm.

“Standby Cap,” Sharon says, he waits for a second and the tapping continues so he starts down the hallway, peering in one room after another.

They’ve only gone through half the rooms on this level, some of them are locked, secured with keycards and retinal scanners and he doesn’t even want to think about the horrors that are waiting behind _those_ doors.

The tapping leads him to one though and he feels the slight air displacement that means that Iron Man is coming up behind him.

The door to the room with the tapping noise has a keypad and a retinal scanner. Tony makes a huffing noise behind him and kind of shoves him out of the way.

At least he’s not shooting the door, instead shooting a hole into the wall next to the door.

“It could have been lined with explosives or been…”

“But it wasn’t,” Tony says and he just knows that under the helmet that hides Tony’s face the other man is rolling his eyes.

He holds his shield in front of him, climbing carefully through the makeshift entranceway, Tony a step behind him.

The room is dark and there’s only one bed in the room, the young man strapped to it is struggling weakly, the tapping noise has been the bed hitting a metal stand bolted into the floor as he jerked.

His arms and legs are restrained and his head and face is covered, like all the other kids they’d found, with that damned metal helmet.

“I’ve got a boy here,” he says quietly, he moves across the room, slinging his shield over one shoulder as he goes.

“Alive or…?” Sharon starts.

“He’s alive,” he says. He touches the boys’ shoulder and tries not to think about the fact that he can feel the bones shifting under his hand as the boy keeps struggling, “Easy there son, just give us a few minutes and we’ll get you of those restraints.”

The boy stills.

“What do you make of these?” Iron Man says, his hand is hovering over the helmet and there’s a symbol that Steve has never seen before etched into the metal. He glances down and sees that the same symbol is etched into both wrist restraints, and further down on piece of metal that joins the ankle restraints together.

It’s certainly not something that was on any of the other restraints or helmets that they’d seen in the facility, not that he’d got close enough except to verify that the kids were dead.

“Um,” he starts, and he backs up a step. The boy must sense their withdrawal because he makes a panicked noise and after a second he can hear the boy is mumbling a muffled ‘help’ as he resumes his struggles.

He looks over at Iron Man and when he reaches for the helmet he doesn’t stop him so Steve starts looking for the catch on the helmet.

The clasp is on the side and his fingers feel overly large as he fumbles with the release before he manages to get the thing loosened enough that he can open it and push it away.

The boy is probably a young man; gaunt face and terrified eyes that seem to spark with recognition for half a second before it vanishes.

 

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“The boy is catatonic,” the doctor is saying when Steve arrives. He’s in street clothes, t-shirt and jeans though he’s still wearing the boots from his uniform. There’d been no shoes in his locker and he doesn’t remember taking them home.

“He was conscious when we found him,” Steve says, he hasn’t been gone _that_ long.

“And he was conscious for a few minutes when he came in, but now he’s lapsed into some kind of catatonic shock.”

“Eyes are open, no one’s home, helmet they had on all of them, some kind of VR, virtual reality tech, never seen the design before,” Tony says, he’s tapping at something on his phone looking annoyed, Steve glares at him just because.

“You shouldn’t even have been in his room,” the doctor snaps, “that boy is a minor and…”

“And that boy is a _victim_ and we need to talk to him,” Tony says he looks up, raises an eyebrow. “He’s the _only_ survivor and we need to find out both who took him and how he survived.”

“Minor?” Steve asks, he should have stayed in his uniform and followed the ambulance in, but there’d been 23 dead kids in that warehouse, he’d needed to shower away the smell and feeling of being around that much death in one place.

Sharon hands him a folder, SHIELD emblem embossed on the front, when he flips it open there’s a missing persons report from the previous year.

Sixteen year old Gavrilovich ‘Stiles’ Stilinski, kidnapped after a lacrosse game. Missing for eleven months, 26 days.

“Has someone notified his family?” he asks, the kid laying catatonic in one of their hospital beds is a faint shadow of the kid in the picture. The kid in the picture has laughing, mischievous eyes.

“I called his dad, mom passed away almost six years ago, he’s on his way.”

 

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SHIELD has a very small department that deals with some of the weird crap that they find during the course of a normal mission.

Specialist Crawford is a known entity; Agent Markoff rarely leaves his office, so Steve is not surprised to see Crawford standing there with two books and handful of papers when he comes out of the boys’ room.

“We found the symbols,” Crawford starts with, he’s always direct and to the point even though he rarely makes eye contact with any of them and the blush that stains his cheeks when talking with Thor could probably heat a small country.

“Okay,” Steve says, because he’s not sure why they care about the symbols but if Crawford made the trip over it must be important.

“You need to put the restraints back on him,” Crawford says, he looks up and manages to make eye contact for about half a second.

“I beg your pardon,” Steve says, because he couldn’t have heard him right.

Crawford flips a book open, there’s a sketch of a human body with restraints, the top of the page says ‘Rituals of A’kresh’. The blow up of the symbols on the body are similar to the ones that were etched into the helmet and manacles that were on the boy.

“Normally they would have been inked onto the skin,” Crawford says. “They’re a binding sigil, the boy must be a witch or a spellcaster, probably white though Agent Markoff thinks they would have worked on any witch regardless of classification. “

“I’m not sure why this means we need to be the restraints back on?”

“Because the sigils need to be broken, not just removed, and the fact that they were removed means that the boy is kind of stuck in between, not in whatever VR reality the helmet was pushing at him, not in the real world, just kind of…”

“In between,” Steve finishes.

 

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Sharon handles the manacles carefully and they have two guards in SHIELD uniforms just in case the boy gets violent.

The doctor is in the corner, glaring mutinously, he’s decidedly against this exercise. Steve can’t say as he blames him.

Between the three of them they fit the manacles back on; the chains have been snipped so it’s just the helmet and the thick metal bands that were encircling his wrists and ankles.

“The tech is inactive,” Tony whispers when Steve winces at the helmet locking into place.

“What the hell is going on in here?!” an angry voice comes from the doorway, Steve glances over, the guards already moving to intercept the man. He recognizes the man from the SHIELD file, this is the boy’s father.

“It’s okay guys,” he waves his hand and Sharon shoots him a look that questions his sanity. Tony’s resting his hand on the helmet.

“Take those off of him, now!”

“We are, trust me we don’t like this anymore then you do,” Steve mutters, Sharon picks up the screwdriver that Tony had brought. Crawford had said to scratch through the sigil on the ankle restraints, then left wrist, right wrist and helmet.

She waits for Steve to nod then presses down hard, drawing a line through the sigil in one swift movement, the boy’s body twitches. She hands it off to Steve to do the right wrist while she flicks open the ankle restraints and lets them fall to the bed. She moves up the bed to the boys left side, waiting.

Steve marks a line through the sigil on the right restraint, the boy twitches again. When Sharon does the left restraint he shudders, body trembling.

Steve keeps one hand on his arm, using the other to pull the restraint off his wrist, watching as Sharon hands the screwdriver over to Tony.

Tony takes a deep breath and drags the screwdriver through the sigil on the helmet, dropping it to the floor as he and Sharon work together to get the helmet off while the boy starts convulsing.

The doctor rushes forward, his father rushes forward and the whole room explodes into shouting and yelling.

 

********************************************************

 

The father is a Sheriff; he’s got his badge on his hip and shoots rapid fire questions that no one can answer at them. He also looks really fucking familiar but Tony doesn’t focus on that right at the moment.

“What do we know about the tech?” Maria asks, she has her arms crossed over her chest. It’s just her, him and Steve.

“It’s VR Tech,” Tony says, he flicks through a couple of screens on his tablet and the images populate the screens in the room. “But it’s not like anything that I’ve ever seen before,” just saying that pains him. That there’s someone out there with the smarts to design and build tech like this and they were kidnapping sixteen year old kids to use it on is just sad.

“You said there was a memory chip in it?”

Tony blinks at her, “wow, so you actually _read_ the reports that I send in.”

“The ones that you deign to send that contain actual _useful_ information, yes,” Maria says, she runs her fingers over the screen showing the helmet, the one with the sigil that had locked the boy into the helmet.

“I haven’t been able to access any of the information off it yet, I’m running decryption programs and we’re getting close…”

“Close enough to have a reason to not release the boy?”

“You think he might be involved?” Steve interjects; it’s the first words he’s said since Hill called them in there.

It takes a moment but Maria shakes her head.

 

********************************************************

 

The boy is awake when he Steve gets there; he got the call at 02:30 from one of the SHIELD guards at the boys’ door.

He’s got wet eyes and his father is sitting on the edge of his with his arm over his shoulder when Steve shoulders the door open.

There’s a flash of something in the boys’ eyes that Steve thinks is grief. His father looks angry and doesn’t move.

“Hello there,” he says, for lack of anything better to say. The boys’ lips quirk into something that might have been on the way to a smile.

“I don’t remember anything,” he says.

“Stiles…” his father starts.

“I don’t, the last thing I remember was the lacrosse field, I had,” he laughs a little, it sounds bitter, “I’d been having a good game.”

“Stiles,” his dad says and he tugs Stiles closer to him.

“Anything you can remember, any little thing might help us catch the people who did this to you,” Steve says.

Stiles looks at him, directly at him and he doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away or anything. Just focuses completely on him and then shakes his head.

“I don’t remember anything,” he says and Steve doesn’t know how he’s so sure, but he’s 100% certain that he’s lying.

 

********************************************************

 

Tony cracks the encryption on the VR Tech about two hours after the Sheriff and Stiles leave the hospital. Stiles has a bag full of pills that Steve is sure he won’t ever take and he’s made promises that he would seek counseling that Steve is sure won’t ever happen.

“The Sheriff looks like Johnny Cage,” Tony says as he’s pushing data to the screens. It’s just the two of them as Tony had requested.

“I don’t know who that is,” Steve admits.

“Actor that disappeared about twenty years ago,” there’s a flick of the fingers and a picture on the screen, the picture does look like a much younger version of the Sheriff that had just taken his son away.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Not a damn thing; just thought it was interesting bit of information while we waited for this to load.”

The screens populate suddenly, a flash of color and Steve sees himself, Tony, Natasha, Clint, Fury, Crawford of all people.

“The kid was the focus but the environment that they had him in was…”

“SHIELD,” Steve says slowly.

“I haven’t reviewed it all yet, but the kid has a knowledge set that SHIELD would probably find fairly fascinating.”

“And what would that be exactly?”

“Werewolves and Witches and Demon.”

“Oh my…”

 

********************************************************

 

His house looks the same, exactly the same and it’s not even been a year so he’s not sure why that surprises him.

Scott has come out of the house and is opening his door before his dad can even make it around the car. The others are crowding in the doorway of his house, shoving each other slightly to have the best vantage point.

“I thought we agreed just a couple of people,” his dad says though his tone says that he knew this was going to happen.

“Hi,” Scott says, he’s crouching down and he has his arm out to help him out, like his dad had told him that Stiles is still kind of shaky on his feet but had refused both the wheelchair and the crutches that hospital had tried to foist on him.

“Why don’t we get him out of the car, honey,” Melissa says and she’s smiling at him, her gentle, you look like complete shit but I’m not going to tell you that, smile.

Stiles uses Scott’s arm to pull himself out of the car and he knows how he looks so he doesn’t look at the crowd in the doorway.

Doesn’t look at Lydia or Allison wiping their eyes to hide tears.

Doesn’t look at the way Derek’s eyes are flashing red and the others are crouched to rush forward and offer assistance if Scott or his father or Melissa falter in helping him.

He just doesn’t look, he lets Scott help him up the walkway to the house; he lets his dad lead the way and he keeps his head down the way he should have been all along.

 

********************************************************

 

“Your father says you’re not sleeping,” the therapist opens with.

She’s the other one, not the therapist that he has to see so that he can go to school, but the one that his father had called in about fifteen favors that he hadn’t had so that he could make sure that his son was okay.

He doesn’t have to lie to her, she knows who he is, she knows who his father is.

“I have dreams,” he says after a brief pause.

“About the VR Tech?”

“Just being back in the world that the tech created,” he says.

He doesn’t say that it scares him, the thought that he might have been stuck in that world forever, he thinks that goes without saying.

He _also_ doesn’t say that he misses it, the friends he had, the family he’d made.

Clint.

“You’re safe here; your father will do everything in his power to protect you.”

Stiles snorts, “He called Rayden and I think he’s been talking with Liu when he thinks I’m sleeping, I’m pretty sure that’s not in any definition of safe, I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of him putting his neck in my place.”

The therapist tilts her head a bit, Stiles doesn’t squirm because he deals with Lydia on a daily basis and this woman has got nothing on her.

 

********************************************************

 

 

 

 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done, read notes at the end if you are interested in whether or not this will continue.

**Stiles Stilinski, Agent of Shield 30/30**

He absolutely despises these meetings, they make his skin crawl.

_He_ makes his skin crawl.

But he comes and alone, leaving his gun at the door with a kid barely out of his teens wearing a sneer that he desperately wants to smack off his face.

“Agent Markoff, do what do I owe the honor?” he’s bent over a table and as he gets closer he can see that he’s looking at the pictures organized there.

The boy that had caused all the fuss is in one of them, he recognizes some of the others from the dead kids.

“I need to know how you want me to handle the questions that SHIELD is asking?”

He smiles at him, white teeth gleaming a bit and they look sharp and dangerous, more dangerous even then the knife by his hand.

“Why you’ll tell them the truth, I’m sure,” he says, he straightens, folding his arms over his chest, smiling in a way that makes his blood run cold.

He picks up the knife, tip tapping on the table, on the pictures; it goes back and forth touching every one until only the boy, the survivor is the one left untouched.

“Their hope for the future,” he says, he presses the tip against the curve of the boys’ neck. “Do you know why these ones, these particular children, were chosen for my little experiment?”

“Um…”

“They, together would have been enough to fight what is coming, but now…”

“Now they’re all dead,” Markoff says, there’s a lump in his throat, they were all kids, not a one of them over the age of eighteen.

“All but this one,” he drives the knife into the middle of the picture, between the boys’ eyes and Markoff takes a step back.

“Witches,” he snarls, his eyes gleam black as night for a moment before fading back to the blue they normally are.

“How do you…?”

“Know that? I’ve reviewed the data of course, none of the others supplied much information, they could only be prodded so far before their little brains gave out, but him… what do you know of your little assistant?”

“Crawford? He’s a paper pusher,” Markoff says, and one that he’d been saddled with as well, he’d not requested any assistance. Staying under the radar and being able to supply information was a lot easier when he wasn’t trying to also duck an assistant whose sole purpose seemed to be making him go to meetings he didn’t want to attend in the first place.

“He’s the left hand,” he says, he comes around the table and Markoff goes to back up again, move out of the way.

“The kid doesn’t even know him,” Markoff manages to stutter out.

“Not yet, no, but at some point, in the very near future, he will,” he smiles at him, Markoff swallows thickly. “I think our partnership has come to its natural conclusion, you need not report in again.”

 

********************************************************

 

Steve spends a week after Stiles’ father takes him back home reviewing what footage Tony is able to pull from the VR tech, it starts very abruptly when he’s in college.

“Wouldn’t he have noticed that he was missing like four years of his life?” he asks and Tony just shakes his head.

“Probably where the program started up, he would have still been confused, disoriented from the kidnapping I’m sure, by the time he would have been in the right frame of mind to determine there was something wrong I’m fairly sure he was completely locked into it.”

Steve nods slowly, he’s still not sure he understands.

“We tested his blood, he’s not a mutant,” Tony adds like an afterthought. “Though I’m fairly sure he’s got to have some psychic abilities of some sort.”

“Why do you say that?”

Tony taps his own screen a couple of times and Crawford’s picture pops up, he and Stiles are sitting together on the floor of what Steve knows was their office.

“Crawford.”

Steve sighs, he knows Tony doesn’t have any answers to the multitude of questions that he wants to be asking, he still wants to ask them.

“Someone should go talk to him, see if we can get him to admit to anything,” Tony says.

Steve nods slowly, “I think we can both agree that whoever that person is it shouldn’t be Clint?”

 

********************************************************

 

Clint is standing on his doorstep, he looks casual, t-shirt, jeans, beat up leather jacket that Stiles has a sudden sense memory of wrapping himself up in.

Stiles doesn’t know what he’s doing there and that’s the reason that it takes him a split second longer than it should to slam the door closed, Clint gets his foot then his body through the door while Stiles is gawking at him.

Rayden is gone, off doing whatever it is he does when he’s not annoying his dad. Liu had somehow managed to convince his dad to go to a gym four towns over so they could work out without anyone seeing them and then subsequently asking where and when the Sheriff learned any sort of martial arts.

He’s here alone until Lydia arrives in, he glances over at the clock on the wall in the kitchen, he can barely see it so he has to lean a little, she’ll be there in 14 minutes. He psychically screams at her to hurry the fuck up. But he’s not psychic, not even a little so…

“Did you, um, need something?” he asks weakly, he smiles brightly to try and compensate for the internal freaking out and Clint rolls his eyes at him and snorts a little.

“The truth maybe?”

“Uh.”

“You know a good host offers beverages, possibly some cookies.”

“Sorry, fresh out of everything, dad went to the store, he should be back any minute,” it’s time like these, confronted with boyfriends from realities that haven’t happened, that he wishes that the werewolves hadn’t listened when he threw his fit and made them promise to stop checking up on him.

“Kitchen through there,” Clint ambles towards the direction of the kitchen and Stiles is pretty much helpless to do anything to stop him. He could scream but if he does that the pack will show up and it’ll be pretty much blood and claws and his dad will yell about cleaning it all up.

“I told them back at the hospital…” Stiles starts, he looks at a spot over Clint’s shoulder.

Clint snorts again and reaches into the pocket of his jacket, Stiles takes a step back just in case Clint turns out to be some sort of homicidal lunatic.

He lays a picture on the table and Stiles has to kind of reach for the counter to steady himself.

“I found that in a hidey hole that me and one other person know about,” Clint pulls out a chair, turns it around and sits down, resting his arms against the back, staring at him.

“Maybe she’s messing with you?”

“I think we both know that Nat doesn’t mess around with me like that,” he says, “well I know that, and I’m not sure how but I’m pretty sure that you do as well. That’s me in the picture, couple years older from what I can figure, and that’s you in the picture, _definitely_ a couple years older because I don’t touch jailbait and you pretty much _epitomize_ jailbait at the moment.”

His chest hurts, his heart aching because he knows, he _knows_ he should lie and he doesn’t _want_ to.

“VR stuff,” Stiles says, he waves his hand in the air. “It’s just VR stuff.”

“Yeah, that’s what Stark says,” Clint looks at him and Stiles thinks he’s really _seeing_ him, he doesn’t know why Clint is even bothering to try. “I’m not sure I actually believe that.”

“Uh…”

Lydia saves him, swinging open the back door like she she’s a resident of the house and doesn’t need to knock.

“Oh my,” she says and she has wide eyes that turn smooth and calculating, it takes her a second but she turns on the charm. “Well hello there, am I interrupting something?” she blinks her eyes at Clint and he sort of look at her stupidly like he can’t figure out what her angle is.

“Clint was just leaving,” Stiles says, Clint looks over at him, eyes narrowing and finally he just huffs an annoyed breath and stands.

“You can keep the picture, it’s a copy,” Clint says he brushes past Lydia and stops right in front of Stiles.

“I’ll, um, show you out.”

Clint stops at the door, hand on the knob as he turns to look at him.

“You’re lying to me,” he says after a moment, “I just can’t figure out if you’re doing it to protect us or to protect yourself.”

It’s a stupid move, he knows he shouldn’t but when Clint goes to open the door he stops him, fingers wrapping around his wrist. “I’m sorry that I can’t give you the answers that you want.”

Clint looks down at his hand, looks back at him.

“Yet.”

“What?”

“You can’t give me the answers I want yet, that’s what you meant to say,” Clint says, he leans in close, brushes his lips against Stiles’ ear. “But you will, eventually.” He straightens, winks at him. “I’ll see you around.”

Then he’s gone and when Stiles looks out the front door he doesn’t see any sign of him.

“So that was Clint Barton,” Lydia says, Stiles hangs his head for a moment then turns, shutting the door and locking it as he does. She’s standing in the doorway holding the picture up, like she’s comparing the Stiles in picture to the one that’s standing in front of her.

“Give me that,” he says, she hands it over without a fight, just a raised eyebrow as he walks past her to the stairs. “We’ll need to sweep for bugs, does Danny have something that’ll…” he waves a hand.

“Sweep for bugs,” he can hear the laughter in her voice, she’s the only one that doesn’t treat him like fragile glass that would break into a million tiny shards from just the wrong tap. “I’m sure he does and if he doesn’t he can find something.”

Stiles opens the door to his bedroom, he was alone in the house so he hadn’t locked it when he went downstairs. Derek and the others know better than to try and come through his bedroom window. Allison had given him stuff to make sure they’d use the front door and only the front door.

“You could have just told him,” Lydia says, she shuts the door, locking it for good measure.

“Told him what? They all think it was VR tech, I think it’s safer, for now, for them to think it was VR tech,” Stiles says. He sits down in his chair. “It’s far better than trying to explain alternate realities and bridge tech that I don’t even understand, not really.”

“But you still marked him,” Lydia says softly.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I still marked him.”

Stiles looks at the picture in his hands, he brushes fingers across Clint’s face, his face, both smiling and happy. He opens the top drawer of his desk and puts the picture there, face down, for now.

For now.

 

********************************************************

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a while back when I stated that this would end at Chapter 30, I also said that it would continue on past that in a second story. I probably at the time should have refrained from making that promise as I, back then, had no idea that you as a majority would not like the way this story ended.
> 
> That being said, this story (possibly series, we'll see I guess) and I will be taking a break. In the fall I'll either post the first chapter, or I'll post a note directing anyone still interested to the breakout of where the next story would have gone.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and for your feedback.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover Art] Stiles Stilinski: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1525220) by [KylieL](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KylieL/pseuds/KylieL)




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